The oligarchs depend on the level of discourse and dialogue not exceeding a certain threshold. If Americans can succeed in breaking the spell, now that the elites have essentially ripped off the mask, then there’s still hope.
As the saying goes, “the devil always overplays his hand.” It feels like the Borg Cube is doing a lot of that these days.
Thanks for always elevating the discourse Caitlin!
A few years back facing obstinate behavior of the West in expanding the NATO the Russian military doctrine was changed to explicitly permit the use of nuclear weapons first if a conventional attack is launched by the NATO, given that NATO has an overwhelming advantage in that regard.
Moreover, if any attack would be launched from some European territory a retaliation would be directed at the command and control centers which are assumed to be in the USA.
The West's leadership are fully aware of that. I guess the top guys/gals there think they'll be able to hide someplace in New Zealand.
About wealthy US billionaires heading for New Zealand to buy up land and businesses. This was until recently a favourite American sport, where 1 US$ being worth NZ$ 1.47 or similar. Thankfully for the NZ people, the government has made it much more difficult to allow such activities to happen any more.
Geographically ideal for the nervous American wealthy, New Zealand is a long way away from the early likely target of New York city, which would be a tempting target for a nuclear armed power to make a point, should they be responding to any number of itchy trigger fingers in NATO or the US, anxious to create some form of historic event. As unnecessary as it really was against Japan, it was first seen by the world in 1945 when the war was almost over.
One man made that decision. One man.
What a subject for a bookmaker. Consider the possibilities, calculate the odds.....a Navy vessel, an Air Force aircraft, any number of ground based missile locations ( with 800 US bases around the world ), a weak US President or a misfit British Prime Minster or an arrogant French President or someone in authority with a flair for stupid acts..... and on it goes. Candidates unlimited.
Just one person in authority is all you need. A great temptation for such a person.
It takes little imagination to see how simple it WILL be. It probably will happen. The odds are for too heavily stacked against expecting to see rational thinking from so many involved human beings with such authority..…..of which there now must be so many.
Truman may not have been the leading instigator but he approved of nuking Japan -- not Europe where people are just like us, civilized, and all -- to warn communist USSR and China and his finger was an inch away from nuking North Korea, Manchuria and Siberia during the Korean war. McArthur was ten times more gungho with nuking the commies and thus ten times more popular (the war hero again!) in the US, Truman had to pull the rank and sack MacArthur and his idea.
You may also want to read the comments. Saudi Arabia is negotiating with China to sell oil for Yuan -- not dollars. Kind of gives you a new understanding of just how desperate Biden is.
This analysis seems off. As a Gen Xer, we’ve always been taught that nuclear war is suicide and mutually assured destruction. It didn’t mean that most people expected that we would get rid of nuclear weapons. In fact, it meant that we would keep improving our nuclear weapons. The goal was to make sure that everybody knew everybody would die if even one nuclear weapon was used.
So, it isn’t fear of nuclear weapons that is causing people to back a war with Russia. It appears that people just no longer fear that Russia will use nuclear weapons. Or, they’ve been whipped into such a hatred of Russia that they no longer think that everybody dying is too big a price to pay as long as Russia loses.
ive been around since the 70s and i dont think ive ever felt so close to world disaster, the leaders of the western world seem insane and have no concept of the dangers they are playing with in the pursuit of control and domination.
Joe Biden remarkably has been adamant on insisting on no US intervention. How long this may hold up one wonders? My guess is there is quite a bit of inside pressure by the warhawk maniacs for him to do more, and will the warmongers win out? Will they devise some false flag operation that will increase pressure immensely? It is not only Joe Biden we have to worry about - it is all other World leaders that might attempt to take even more direct military action in Ukraine.
That the world is even at this place shows a catastrophic failure in world leadership and the militarism of the United States for the last few decades must be condemned vehemently - in that it has created the very atmosphere we now are existing in - living in a Dr. Strangelove movie that has come to life.
The Main Stream Media is screaming for more war. I saw one General claiming that the only thing Putin would understand is some kind of direct intervention by NATO, at the very least, a no-fly-zone. This is exactly the type of thinking that has put us where we are at now: that the only way to resolve any kind of human problems in the world is with more violence, more repression, more censorship. It is as Carl Jung would say, the Power Complex gone amok in the world - those who are in power only understand one thing to get their way: violence and repression.
I am not remotely afraid of nukes. That is so last century!
Nowadays I recognise the threat of Direct Energy Weapons (DEWs) which are invisible, untraceable and used against us ALL via satellites at the press of a button.
In that candle-lit future when the surviving Irish monks in their subterranean monastery try to tally all the deaths that occurred during the Great Reset (or whatever they call the waning of the Piscean Age), they will find that the vast majority of deaths resulted not from nuclear weapons or even DEWs, but from those far more lethal WMDs: Bic Macs, Pepsi, bacon, and Oreos.
"These people are like mobsters, knowing they'll probably die a violent death but willing to risk it all for a chance at living the high life"
These people are the Oligarchs. There are just over 600 of them in the USA. Yes they have many, many people who work for them. But if the 600 are restrained, their underlings won't have the power to do anything.
Russia will not back down, but Russia will not use nuclear weapons, unless it has developed a usable-without-destroying-the-earth nuclear weaponry. Russia has to terrorize NATO population, though, into stand-down.
NATO will not use nukes either as it is not suicidal, but it will fear-monger ("Putin is a crazy monster who can actually start a nuclear war") to its advantage.
the war will drag on, until the split between the NATO/vassal sphere and the rest of the world is complete. at least humanity will have real choices throughout and at the end of this process.
NYC's certainly experiencing hive-minded, obsequious denial, specious obliviousness and sneering pontification reminiscent of a particularly stereotypical 70s disaster movie over the preceding two years, as PMC, petit bourgeois & boomer yuppies fed upon poor essentials (the new Black) flipping our 40K serendipitously vacant apartments, while indenturing chronically PASC survivors into 1099 gig-serfdom, now they're harvesting kids' convalescent serum after eviction and repo apps part-out any remainung equity?
Bleak. But true. No one wants to face the entire truth of the last two years nor what this virus really is. Plus, there’s no stopping the virus. Vaccines have failed and maimed people. Natural immunity from previous infection doesn’t last. We’re all dry tinder for this airborne chimera and cumulative spike damage is going to come for everyone at some time.
There's a "call your Senator!" email, today by "Survivors Corps HQ" with Senators TIm Kaine (D-VA), (who has Long COVID), Ed Markey (D-MA) and Tammy Duckworth pushing for a Senate bill, with Katie friggin Couric (next to Tom Brokaw, Saron to US journalism nerds) as famous TV finger puppet. Market is UP 3.92%, so I'm pretty damn sure all of this is academic (since I'd learned to HATE Tim & Mark Warner, working for Duke, Dominion and Spectra on killing everyone's grandchildren, so they could be 'Murikan oligarchs.
Natural immunity lasts. They're finally admitting it, though it's not reported on much at all. The vaccines were never necessary, but it's not true that the first rounds maimed people, at least not many. The boosters appear to be a different story.
Covid is a common cold virus, and that's all it is.
I know two totally unvaccinated families who have had CoVid multiple times. Natural immunity does not last. The virus has mutated enough that people are getting Alpha, Delta, then Omicron.
THANK you. My image was 400K yuppies bashing prams into each other, taking selfies MASKLESS for their ofay Mindfulness guru. Fingers shoved knuckle deep into skulls full of Pootin, Russia, reciting: "It's MILD, I'm SUPER Immune, Scarlett Letter, masks are SO for the scvartzes!" Those reporters DEMANDING firey death from above, Celebrity blood clot & stroke theatre and the Market rebound this morning (crazy, it's mostly hippy-dippy PV, PHEV, battery, smart grid, renewable, regenerative, efficient & sustainable Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean equities?) kinda creep us geriatric hillbillies out, nowadays?
We in the US accept this every day. But it doesn’t seem to be the atomic bomb that is keeping us from overthrowing our own government because we regularly murder innocent people in the Middle East.
You ask what is wrong with you people? Have you seen the images coming out of Ukraine? How many more such atrocities must there be before we call a murderous dictator's bluff? If this is to be the shape of the future I'm glad I won't be here to see it.
Depends on who you want to hold responsible for these murders. If you think that it was only Russia, then you're a fool. If you understand that Biden had the chance to back off and didn't, then what are you going to do about it?
Sorry, but do you mean by backing off that Ukraine should have been left to fend for itself, without either moral or material support? If that is the case, your answer to my question is 'yes'. Doubtless you will have guessed that I take the opposing view. As to who is responsible for the murders, calling me a fool will not stop me saying it: Putin, Putin, Putin.
"calling me a fool will not stop me saying it: Putin, Putin, Putin."
Doing so will only confirm that you are a fool.
Storm signals have been out since December. Biden ignored them to benefit the American Oligarchy. Apparently you believe that selective history is going to change that somehow.
Whatever Biden should have done but failed to do does not make him, in this context, at least, a killer. If Putin's actions are merely a response to Biden's (which I doubt), I can only say they are grotesquely disproportionate. He is a war criminal and I hope to see him tried as such. Incidentally, my original question was generic and required only a simple yes or no answer. Not that it's important, but you have not actually addressed it.
no, we must never accept any murder by anyone with any weapon at any moment for any reason. but that ship had sailed long ago. whether anyone is innocent is another question.
Obama liked to brag about killing Muslins with drones, he said he was good at it. He seemed a nice fella but once in power he was pretty comfortable with murder.
I changed my mind, to quote Nixon, when the President does it, it is not illegal. So when the President of the United States uses a $40 million drone to fire a $150,000 hellfire missile to kill a pissed off Afgan, it is not murder, it is a justifiable action against an enemy combatant. I think the secret is to be on the winning team, the right side of the engagement. It is really just a disagreement, although admittedly the outcome is rather disproportionate. Does it really matter what we think the plan is? Are we not just destined to kill one another, and if yes then clearly doing the killing is better than being killed.
The oligarchs depend on the level of discourse and dialogue not exceeding a certain threshold. If Americans can succeed in breaking the spell, now that the elites have essentially ripped off the mask, then there’s still hope.
As the saying goes, “the devil always overplays his hand.” It feels like the Borg Cube is doing a lot of that these days.
Thanks for always elevating the discourse Caitlin!
A few years back facing obstinate behavior of the West in expanding the NATO the Russian military doctrine was changed to explicitly permit the use of nuclear weapons first if a conventional attack is launched by the NATO, given that NATO has an overwhelming advantage in that regard.
Moreover, if any attack would be launched from some European territory a retaliation would be directed at the command and control centers which are assumed to be in the USA.
The West's leadership are fully aware of that. I guess the top guys/gals there think they'll be able to hide someplace in New Zealand.
About wealthy US billionaires heading for New Zealand to buy up land and businesses. This was until recently a favourite American sport, where 1 US$ being worth NZ$ 1.47 or similar. Thankfully for the NZ people, the government has made it much more difficult to allow such activities to happen any more.
Geographically ideal for the nervous American wealthy, New Zealand is a long way away from the early likely target of New York city, which would be a tempting target for a nuclear armed power to make a point, should they be responding to any number of itchy trigger fingers in NATO or the US, anxious to create some form of historic event. As unnecessary as it really was against Japan, it was first seen by the world in 1945 when the war was almost over.
One man made that decision. One man.
What a subject for a bookmaker. Consider the possibilities, calculate the odds.....a Navy vessel, an Air Force aircraft, any number of ground based missile locations ( with 800 US bases around the world ), a weak US President or a misfit British Prime Minster or an arrogant French President or someone in authority with a flair for stupid acts..... and on it goes. Candidates unlimited.
Just one person in authority is all you need. A great temptation for such a person.
It takes little imagination to see how simple it WILL be. It probably will happen. The odds are for too heavily stacked against expecting to see rational thinking from so many involved human beings with such authority..…..of which there now must be so many.
"One man made that decision. One man." - not sure if you refer to Truman.
If you do then there are doubts he actually did that rather than just having to postdate it. There are fascinating interviews of Leslie Groves: https://www.manhattanprojectvoices.org/oral-histories/general-leslie-grovess-interview-part-1
Looks like it might be the military wanted to see the final result and they just went ahead.
Truman may not have been the leading instigator but he approved of nuking Japan -- not Europe where people are just like us, civilized, and all -- to warn communist USSR and China and his finger was an inch away from nuking North Korea, Manchuria and Siberia during the Korean war. McArthur was ten times more gungho with nuking the commies and thus ten times more popular (the war hero again!) in the US, Truman had to pull the rank and sack MacArthur and his idea.
The war in Europe was over before the bomb was ready.
he didn't imply otherwise, come on. they must have kicked around hypotheticals.
Biden could be talked into it, his dementia is approaching the peeing on house plants level.
There is no mainstream news media. There's only a perception management & narrative control industry. Thus, most likely, we be doomed.
I dunno...
I feel I gotta tell folks that Russia is winning and that the US is planning a false flag. https://www.moonofalabama.org/2022/03/gonzalo-lira-a-false-flag-is-coming.html#more
You may also want to read the comments. Saudi Arabia is negotiating with China to sell oil for Yuan -- not dollars. Kind of gives you a new understanding of just how desperate Biden is.
Good bye to the petrodollar. Was probably already gone, this is just how they let us know.
This analysis seems off. As a Gen Xer, we’ve always been taught that nuclear war is suicide and mutually assured destruction. It didn’t mean that most people expected that we would get rid of nuclear weapons. In fact, it meant that we would keep improving our nuclear weapons. The goal was to make sure that everybody knew everybody would die if even one nuclear weapon was used.
So, it isn’t fear of nuclear weapons that is causing people to back a war with Russia. It appears that people just no longer fear that Russia will use nuclear weapons. Or, they’ve been whipped into such a hatred of Russia that they no longer think that everybody dying is too big a price to pay as long as Russia loses.
The realities of nuclear war have been deliberately suppressed for a generation, at least.
Russiagate has amped up hatred of Russia in general, and Putin in particular, since 2016.
Modern Democrats have been stealthily moved to the Right of warmongering Birchers and paranoid McCarthyites of the 50s and 60s.
And here we are, living in an Orwellian nightmare. Thank you, Caitlin, for being one of the sanest voices on the planet.
new here thanks to Russel Brand
ive been around since the 70s and i dont think ive ever felt so close to world disaster, the leaders of the western world seem insane and have no concept of the dangers they are playing with in the pursuit of control and domination.
great article thanks!
Joe Biden remarkably has been adamant on insisting on no US intervention. How long this may hold up one wonders? My guess is there is quite a bit of inside pressure by the warhawk maniacs for him to do more, and will the warmongers win out? Will they devise some false flag operation that will increase pressure immensely? It is not only Joe Biden we have to worry about - it is all other World leaders that might attempt to take even more direct military action in Ukraine.
That the world is even at this place shows a catastrophic failure in world leadership and the militarism of the United States for the last few decades must be condemned vehemently - in that it has created the very atmosphere we now are existing in - living in a Dr. Strangelove movie that has come to life.
The Main Stream Media is screaming for more war. I saw one General claiming that the only thing Putin would understand is some kind of direct intervention by NATO, at the very least, a no-fly-zone. This is exactly the type of thinking that has put us where we are at now: that the only way to resolve any kind of human problems in the world is with more violence, more repression, more censorship. It is as Carl Jung would say, the Power Complex gone amok in the world - those who are in power only understand one thing to get their way: violence and repression.
And it may end up killing us all in the end.
I am not remotely afraid of nukes. That is so last century!
Nowadays I recognise the threat of Direct Energy Weapons (DEWs) which are invisible, untraceable and used against us ALL via satellites at the press of a button.
In that candle-lit future when the surviving Irish monks in their subterranean monastery try to tally all the deaths that occurred during the Great Reset (or whatever they call the waning of the Piscean Age), they will find that the vast majority of deaths resulted not from nuclear weapons or even DEWs, but from those far more lethal WMDs: Bic Macs, Pepsi, bacon, and Oreos.
"These people are like mobsters, knowing they'll probably die a violent death but willing to risk it all for a chance at living the high life"
These people are the Oligarchs. There are just over 600 of them in the USA. Yes they have many, many people who work for them. But if the 600 are restrained, their underlings won't have the power to do anything.
Russia will not back down, but Russia will not use nuclear weapons, unless it has developed a usable-without-destroying-the-earth nuclear weaponry. Russia has to terrorize NATO population, though, into stand-down.
NATO will not use nukes either as it is not suicidal, but it will fear-monger ("Putin is a crazy monster who can actually start a nuclear war") to its advantage.
the war will drag on, until the split between the NATO/vassal sphere and the rest of the world is complete. at least humanity will have real choices throughout and at the end of this process.
NYC's certainly experiencing hive-minded, obsequious denial, specious obliviousness and sneering pontification reminiscent of a particularly stereotypical 70s disaster movie over the preceding two years, as PMC, petit bourgeois & boomer yuppies fed upon poor essentials (the new Black) flipping our 40K serendipitously vacant apartments, while indenturing chronically PASC survivors into 1099 gig-serfdom, now they're harvesting kids' convalescent serum after eviction and repo apps part-out any remainung equity?
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.11.21258690v4
https://rumble.com/vswvll-prof.-christian-perronne-at-luxembourg-parliament-hearing-on-vaccinating-ch.html
https://amidwesterndoctor.substack.com/p/adverse-reactions-to-covid-vaccines?s=r
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/labs/pmc/articles/PMC8133385/
https://source.wustl.edu/2022/02/new-way-viruses-trigger-autoimmunity-discovered/
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/03/15/covi-m15.html
https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/970161
Bleak. But true. No one wants to face the entire truth of the last two years nor what this virus really is. Plus, there’s no stopping the virus. Vaccines have failed and maimed people. Natural immunity from previous infection doesn’t last. We’re all dry tinder for this airborne chimera and cumulative spike damage is going to come for everyone at some time.
There's a "call your Senator!" email, today by "Survivors Corps HQ" with Senators TIm Kaine (D-VA), (who has Long COVID), Ed Markey (D-MA) and Tammy Duckworth pushing for a Senate bill, with Katie friggin Couric (next to Tom Brokaw, Saron to US journalism nerds) as famous TV finger puppet. Market is UP 3.92%, so I'm pretty damn sure all of this is academic (since I'd learned to HATE Tim & Mark Warner, working for Duke, Dominion and Spectra on killing everyone's grandchildren, so they could be 'Murikan oligarchs.
Natural immunity lasts. They're finally admitting it, though it's not reported on much at all. The vaccines were never necessary, but it's not true that the first rounds maimed people, at least not many. The boosters appear to be a different story.
Covid is a common cold virus, and that's all it is.
I know two totally unvaccinated families who have had CoVid multiple times. Natural immunity does not last. The virus has mutated enough that people are getting Alpha, Delta, then Omicron.
THANK you. My image was 400K yuppies bashing prams into each other, taking selfies MASKLESS for their ofay Mindfulness guru. Fingers shoved knuckle deep into skulls full of Pootin, Russia, reciting: "It's MILD, I'm SUPER Immune, Scarlett Letter, masks are SO for the scvartzes!" Those reporters DEMANDING firey death from above, Celebrity blood clot & stroke theatre and the Market rebound this morning (crazy, it's mostly hippy-dippy PV, PHEV, battery, smart grid, renewable, regenerative, efficient & sustainable Chinese, Taiwanese, Korean equities?) kinda creep us geriatric hillbillies out, nowadays?
Maybe you’re right. Or maybe WW3/nuclear world war is a decoy; what may actually happen or is happening would be Operation Gut Strike: https://winstonsocrateses.substack.com/p/operation-gut-strike
Must we then, accept the murder of innocents, whenever the murderer is in possession of an A-bomb?
We in the US accept this every day. But it doesn’t seem to be the atomic bomb that is keeping us from overthrowing our own government because we regularly murder innocent people in the Middle East.
Morality plays no role in military actions.
punching back is the only thing that will stop the bully. one doesn't have to like punching.
Accept them, no. But go to war with a nuclear-armed power to stop it? HELL NO! What is wrong with you people?
How do you think the rest of the world feels about the United States?
You ask what is wrong with you people? Have you seen the images coming out of Ukraine? How many more such atrocities must there be before we call a murderous dictator's bluff? If this is to be the shape of the future I'm glad I won't be here to see it.
i've seen images of the Palestinians for the last 75 years. what have YOU done about that in your entire life hmm???
Depends on who you want to hold responsible for these murders. If you think that it was only Russia, then you're a fool. If you understand that Biden had the chance to back off and didn't, then what are you going to do about it?
Sorry, but do you mean by backing off that Ukraine should have been left to fend for itself, without either moral or material support? If that is the case, your answer to my question is 'yes'. Doubtless you will have guessed that I take the opposing view. As to who is responsible for the murders, calling me a fool will not stop me saying it: Putin, Putin, Putin.
"calling me a fool will not stop me saying it: Putin, Putin, Putin."
Doing so will only confirm that you are a fool.
Storm signals have been out since December. Biden ignored them to benefit the American Oligarchy. Apparently you believe that selective history is going to change that somehow.
Whatever Biden should have done but failed to do does not make him, in this context, at least, a killer. If Putin's actions are merely a response to Biden's (which I doubt), I can only say they are grotesquely disproportionate. He is a war criminal and I hope to see him tried as such. Incidentally, my original question was generic and required only a simple yes or no answer. Not that it's important, but you have not actually addressed it.
no, we must never accept any murder by anyone with any weapon at any moment for any reason. but that ship had sailed long ago. whether anyone is innocent is another question.
Obama liked to brag about killing Muslins with drones, he said he was good at it. He seemed a nice fella but once in power he was pretty comfortable with murder.
I changed my mind, to quote Nixon, when the President does it, it is not illegal. So when the President of the United States uses a $40 million drone to fire a $150,000 hellfire missile to kill a pissed off Afgan, it is not murder, it is a justifiable action against an enemy combatant. I think the secret is to be on the winning team, the right side of the engagement. It is really just a disagreement, although admittedly the outcome is rather disproportionate. Does it really matter what we think the plan is? Are we not just destined to kill one another, and if yes then clearly doing the killing is better than being killed.
How has the ship sailed? The murders continue as we speak. As to your doubts about innocence, do you believe in original sin?
Worked in Korea, Vietnam and over 100 other places since 1945.