227 Comments
User's avatar
Feral Finster's avatar

The problem is that Russia really does not want this war and is loathe to avoid escalation.

The sociopaths who rule over the West see this as contemptible weakness.

Expand full comment
El dragon's avatar

It's been covered before, and you can repeat it until you turn blue, you won't change anyone's mind in the West. The average boomer, in the U.S. is breastfed Russophobia.

Expand full comment
Timothy Skeers's avatar

I can vouch for this, being a US boomer … breastfed might be a slight exaggeration, but certainly from the early days of grade school. It’s hard at this point for me to trace my path out of that decades-long brainwashing, but I managed somehow. I have tried to reason others out of it, with almost zero success. I’ve pretty much given up at this point.

Expand full comment
Sera's avatar

Looming nuclear accords and detente with Russia were among the many reasons Kennedy was hated by the deep state. I ducked, I covered, but I never understood. I’ve read that when Nikita Kruschov learned of Kennedy’s death he broke down in tears.

“I learned to hate the Russians all through my whole life

If another war comes, it's them we must fight

To hate them and fear them, to run and to hide

And accept it all bravely with God on my side”-Dylan, 1963

Expand full comment
pyrrhus's avatar

The West has wanted to conquer Russia and grab its resources for well over 200 years, and has consistently failed badly...That's why the West's leaders and many of its propagandized citizens hate Russia and Russia's ultra patriotic peoples, who will never submit....

Expand full comment
River's avatar

The West does not care about grabbing Russia's resources. Russia is, at heart, however, part of the West. Pretending otherwise is foolish. So I say this as broadly as it is. The West propagandizes its citizens against other countries because it needs enemies, boogey men, and threats, to keep the war machine going. The US and Russia aren't different on that front. So they keep it going in a delicate dance. Until we end up with what we've got now and it only takes one of the plays to make things go boom.

We tend to make a fatal mistake that if the citizens of one country are fed messed up propoganda about another, the country they are fed propoganda about end up romanticized. None of these warmongers are the good guys, and they're holding the world hostage the the nuke-tied games.

Specifically the US propagandized citizens have negative opinions of Russia don't have hate russia because it wants to conquer Russia and grab its resources - the resources in other parts of the globe are what everyone wants and goes after. They have negative opinions because they've been spoon fed them from the vast stores of WWII puree, so they will step in line against bogey men. Thats it. Thats why an eerie amount of americans started talking positively about Russia after years of talking about them like the evil empire once Trump started talking Russia up.

Anyone who thinks what you said has also been propagandized by Russia for the same reasons. Being fed absolutely ground up and mushed bullshit so they will Resist The Evil Empire while being or striving to be part of one.

Expand full comment
russian_bot's avatar

"The West does not care about grabbing Russia's resources." - this is where I stopped reading. You must be on drugs.

Expand full comment
Sam's avatar

Ditto.

Expand full comment
Chang Chokaski's avatar

Very well said River! Thank you.

Most people tend to want to group things into easy good/bad boxes instead of dealing with nuances and commonalities. For example: just as the US propagandizes Americans, Russia propagandizes Russians, China propagandizes Chinese, India propagandizes Indians, etc. etc. Every country puts in a lot of effort into propagandizing their own citizens (i.e. we are the good guys and our enemies are the bad guys). And most people fall for that OR the inverse of that.

Expand full comment
JennyStokes's avatar

Doesn't always work though.

I read for so long that Modi (India) would win easily it seems this is NOT the case.

Of course the US props up Dictator Modi!

Expand full comment
Chang Chokaski's avatar

Yes, doesn't always work. But one also needs to remember that when it comes to propaganda, the US is the world leader. No other country has such a well-oiled propaganda machinery and apparatus as America's.

And yes, Modi is a Dictator. I'm not sure if the US props him up or not. The US seems to need India in its fight against China - regardless of who heads India.

Expand full comment
russian_bot's avatar

"Very well said River! Thank you." - and you've admitted you're on drugs, hence a "well-said".

Jeez!

Expand full comment
River's avatar

Pretty much this. A lot shorter than what I said.

Expand full comment
Landru's avatar

Have you been paying attention? BlackRock has already created a deal to buy up Ukrainian agricultural lands after the war ends. Do you remember Nordstream? Do you remember Dick Chenny talking about the progression of acquisition of energy producing countries?

Expand full comment
River's avatar

Ukraine doesn't belong to Russia. That is not a Russian resource. The fact that you're connecting it as such (per the comment I was responding to; and I was wondering when someone would admit to this with a lack of self awereness) is a product of the same type propaganda that Americans get for the US. Again, rejecting one evil empire doesn't mean spinning a tale to make another one palatable. Unlike Palestine, Russia isn't some scrappy defender here to the West. Its a competitor. And a) it shouldn't be a competition who can be the top world forker; b) the less successful at this ambition compared to whoever is shouldn't be glamorized or excused.

Expand full comment
Landru's avatar

You are too funny, why do you think we in the u.s. care about Ukraine? The love of it's Democracy or it's people? This is about taking over Ukraine to conquer and divide Russia as was stated in policy 1992. Thankfully the Russian people are far more humane then we are in the u.s. or there would be 10s of millions of Ukrainian dead. Sorry, Ukraine now belongs to Russia thanks to we in the u.s. and the fools in nato. East of the Dnipro along with Odessa, good bye. It didn't have to be but the u.s. and nato made it so.

Expand full comment
El dragon's avatar

Great comment brother!

Expand full comment
Feral Finster's avatar

This is another Russian miscalculation. No matter how many symphonies they write, no matter how reasonable they try to be, they will always be feared and hated, they never will be allowed to join The Club.

Expand full comment
El dragon's avatar

We (Slavs) suffer from the same psychological problems of wanted to be loved and be part of the West. But nothing works. We can be used only as a tools. Putin himself was fooled by his beloved West.

Expand full comment
Gnuneo's avatar

My apologies, but I think you are missing an important link.

It is not GEOGRAPHIC - it is CLASS.

What you describe exactly matches the experience of the lower classes WITHIN the West. "We can only be used as tools".

Ready for the next step?

Thi is because the West's "elite schools" train them to be sociopaths, and sociopaths can ONLY see other people as tools. It doesn't matter if it is their own working or middle classes (Or their own class for that matter), or Russian elite classes, or Russian working classes, or whomever wherever.

The western 'elite' education is DESIGNED to produce crippled individuals, and it has been doing this for many centuries now, it is very good at it.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2021/aug/08/public-schoolboys-boris-johnson-sad-little-boys-richard-beard

Wanting to be accepted and have your voice and interests hear and taken seriously is perfectly natural and right.. It is also the door through which all sociopaths manipulate their victims.

Expand full comment
El dragon's avatar

That's very true.

Expand full comment
Andrew Deane's avatar

You know what, being an Aussie, I am disgusted and ashamed to be part of the decadent "West". If we are not all destroyed anytime soon, BRICS will be the go to organisation as the West crumbles into oblivion.

Expand full comment
chris leeds's avatar

If I were an Aussie I think I would prefer cosying up to China and trading with them rather than accepting American nuclear weapons bases and becoming a target!

Expand full comment
JennyStokes's avatar

Same with Europe............abandon the US. It already is dying.

Expand full comment
Andrew Deane's avatar

Absolutely mate ! Unfortunately our inspiring leaders from both major parties, under orders from the empire continue to make idle threats against China, preparing for war. Just pathetic, sad and infuriating.

Expand full comment
russian_bot's avatar

And not just once. Which really does make him a special kind of a fool, in reality beloved by the West.

Expand full comment
Vonu's avatar

Why would they want to join a club that preaches their conquest and distribution to NATO countries?

Expand full comment
Feral Finster's avatar

This is a good question.

Enough to say that the West has enormous reserves of soft power, the ability to get others to think that their best interests are served by your interests. Things like how a degree from Stanford will open doors around the world that a degree from Moscow State University will not. Oligarchs, artists and scholars alike crave plaudits from western cultural institutions, and the latest Hollywood superhero movie franchise or big screen reboot of an 1980s sitcom that was imbecilic the first time around draws big crowds, while nobody knows or cares about Czech fairytales or Vietnamese ghost stories.

Expand full comment
Vonu's avatar

The West's soft power has gone to their heads.

Expand full comment
Feral Finster's avatar

Yup. What does anyone propose to do about it?

I ask this question over and over because that is the only question that sociopaths ask - who is going to stop me? Our cute word games and clever memes do not affect them a bit.

Expand full comment
chris leeds's avatar

I understand America's obsession with Superheroes as having two effects - one it enables continuing belief in 'the Supernatural' (despite any pseudo-science backstory), and Religion, positing that humanity needs to be saved, but only by some exceptional individuals, not by any collective effort. Furthermore, although magical superiority is impossible to achieve, all citizens must believe and strive to be that person.

Secondly it routinely reinforces the idea that Murica is the only legitimate world policeman and justifies the development of Super Soldiers, Bourne trilogy agents, Justice League of America groups - and eventually AI driven police drones.

All this is weirdly and schizophrenically countered with prejudice against difference, fear of outsiders and both jealousy and envy of over achievement, so these heroes must be flawed but noble, and above all patriotic.

Expand full comment
Feral Finster's avatar

Not arguing any of that. The point is that the rest of the world goes along, for the most part.

Expand full comment
Indu Abeysekara's avatar

Yes, Vonu. Why would the Russian Federation want to join The Club.

At first it was the US's fetish about the Soviet Union and Communism. Now it is Putin and his refusal to allow Russia to be balkanised by the US/West. Maybe it is a fate worse than death to be balkanised like what happened with Yugoslavia.

Also the possibility of the Russian Federation, China and the Global South countries getting together in a New Better World Order.... .

That surely will upset the white suprematist world order we have now.

Expand full comment
Jeano's avatar

Feral—No, but they can and are redefining “The Club” and deciding to make their own club that most of “The Rest” want to join. They don’t care about the West anymore—and that is hardly a miscalculation.

Expand full comment
JennyStokes's avatar

Well eventually the crass westerners may have to swallow their tonguse. Russia is not going away neither is China.

Expand full comment
Grips@ADHD's avatar

Let’s not forget also -> Islamophobia- hmm ..🤔 all the phobias actually 🫤🙃

Expand full comment
nosey parker's avatar

Stop blaming everything on your mother!

Expand full comment
@smokygirl2006's avatar

And boy some people dear to me got drunk on that breastfeeding. 😢

Expand full comment
chris leeds's avatar

they are also insanely jealous of China where the government can just do what they want without having to waste time and energy on sham elections and explaining themselves to the public.

Expand full comment
Feral Finster's avatar

Remember how Canada dealt with the trucker protests?

China actually listened and removed lockdowns.

Expand full comment
Chang Chokaski's avatar

Feral, what dreamworld are you living in that you land up defending China on Covid policies? China had THE WORST COVID policies of any country on the planet - the most authoritarian and totalitarian lockdowns, restrictions on freedoms and insane and non-scientific masking, social-distancing, etc. policies. On top of all that, their ego came in the way of them being able to incorporate superior vaccines (from some Western countries) compared to China's own covid vaccines (based on efficacy rates).

Seriously, if you think China listens to its people you might as well have the same blind-folders on that Israelis have about its own govt. and the Palestinians.

Expand full comment
Feral Finster's avatar

China eventually did relax COVID policies, in response to popular protests. Canada, ont he other hand, resorted to extralegal measures.

Expand full comment
Chang Chokaski's avatar

I'm not sure what your "news sources" are. And I'm not sure why you are ignoring a plethora of evidence on the state of China during Covid. Confirmation bias?

There is NO comparison to be had between China, Canada, or any other country. China's COVID lockdowns lasted for 2 years (on and off in different regions of the country). Not so in Canada, US or any other country on earth.

Reasons why China eventually did away with non-sensical, non-scientific, and badly implemented lockdowns:

(1) Impact on economy (i.e. cost of keeping the economy constrained due to lockdowns - including impacts on global exports)

(2) After 2 years, the prevalent strain of Sars Cov-19 virus had mutated to the point of not being in the same risk category as the initial strains (regardless of if someone was vaccinated or not).

(3) Did you even see the deaths caused by the lockdowns (and not Covid)? The fires? The locked housing units? The starvation? The separation of families? The impact on pets? I could go on... There were huge protests against the policies.

>>"Canada, ont he other hand, resorted to extralegal measures."

???

Every country that implemented draconian Covid countermeasures resorted to extra-legal measures. Canada was no exception. And what is extra-legal when the laws can be changed to suit whatever the rulers want the laws to be?

And just to be clear - popular protests had very little to do with China's Covid policies - whether pertaining to lockdowns 2 years down the road or anything else. From studying Chinese history, it should be apparent that protests do not have the same effect in China that they do in other countries.

Expand full comment
Feral Finster's avatar

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_COVID-19_protests_in_China

And after about 1 month of protests, the government lifted the most stringent measures.

Expand full comment
JennyStokes's avatar

100% agree.

Expand full comment
Marianna Chambless's avatar

Not an apologist for Putin, clearly Biden, Blinken and Jake and John are far scarier to me than he is.

Expand full comment
Tim Owen's avatar

The dark Joke: we are supporting neo-Nazis in E Europe, genocidal Salafists in MENA and golpistas in Latin America. Russia is, quite rightly, opposing us on all these fronts. We should be so lucky as to be under some Russian influence.

Expand full comment
El dragon's avatar

Why is Putin scary to you at all? Is something MSNBC or BbC told you about him we don't know?

Expand full comment
Andrew Deane's avatar

On the contrary, Putin is probably the most inspiring, influential, level headed, pragmatic leader on the planet right now. Who believes MSM propaganda anymore ?

Expand full comment
Landru's avatar

I think you misunderstood the comment.

Expand full comment
Rye Wei's avatar

Being a Yank, and not letting others know about it, because I am so embarrassed about our foreign policy wreckage, it is easy to see such short-sighted decisions being made over and over again by US idiot policymakers. Russia is playing a much more intelligent chess game. Quietly. No braggadocios media vomits like the US State department does on a daily basis to broadcast their next chess piece move, which is usually animalistic, rather than humanistic in it's approach. Yuk. Glad I moved to another country years ago.

Expand full comment
Edijal Lowley's avatar

The interior situations aren’t any better in the US either.

Expand full comment
ikester8's avatar

I'm happy to let people know I'm an American (I will never call myself a Yank, it's degrading) and that whatever terrible things they think about American foreign policy, I can assure you that not only do I agree with them, they don't know the half of it!

Expand full comment
Boris Petrov's avatar

Part of that escalation is taking away Scott Ritter’s passport - a relentless promoter of peace !!

Expand full comment
jamenta's avatar

Yikes, first I've heard of this. The new US gestapo at work.

Expand full comment
Boris Petrov's avatar

Ask the Inspector Ep. 165 – Scott Ritter passport – US State Dept. OUTRAGE

https://x.com/RealScottRitter/status/1797781552606429340

Expand full comment
http://coronistan.blogspot.com's avatar

The psychopathic elite wants WWIII.

Expand full comment
Gumnut123's avatar

"They" had already built a number of underground bunkers in USA before 2020 and then the builder was overwhelmed with Orders in 2020. Watched an Interview with one builder who specialised in Bunkers / this fulltime, he was in a state of disbelief.

Expand full comment
Vonu's avatar

Russia is the only nuclear power that didn't decommission their civil defense operation after the cold war. Instead, they built it up to the point where a substantial minority of their population could survive a nuclear first strike with a 30 minute warning.

Expand full comment
Gregor McIntosh's avatar

It’s frightening

Expand full comment
Mary Wildfire's avatar

I remember reading a few decades ago that we had escaped nuclear war because each time we came close, either the Russians or the Americans had someone in charge who wasn't crazy. This time clearly there is no one like that in the US or NATO--Putin seems sane, but it seems "the West" is determined to push Russia until they're forced to escalate--that's how the Ukraine war started in the first place, as great cost to Ukraine above all yet that irresponsible asshole Zelenski isn't satisfied?

Expand full comment
forceOfHabit's avatar

"This would be such a damn stupid way for humanity to annihilate itself."

Damned stupid or predictably stupid?

Expand full comment
Gumnut123's avatar

This is a few people who are trying to deliberately destroy the World, , the paid offs do not realise that they shall be discarded when it suits these Psychopaths.

Expand full comment
Just sayn's avatar

Russia is the largest country today, larger than US and Canada combined. Russia has only about half the population of the US. Russia has a lot of resources but they DO NOT have the people or the Desire to expand. They are NO threat. The US is a huge threat to Russia. Only A fool would not understand that Russia knows they must strike first and hardest if they are to have any hope of Survival. It appears to me that the US wants to provoke this so it can then declare Russia attacked us. The ignorance is palpable. I envision several simultaneously strikes as there is no other choice; London, Tel Aviv, Brussels, definitely Washington DC and Manhattan,NY in addition to other military threats. The days of being safe across the ocean are over. It is up to good people everywhere to Demand that US, UK, and NATO Stand Down. Of course we won't and in just a few short days the course of world history be written in blood again. We have been warned repeatedly about poking the Bear. Just Stop!

Expand full comment
Vonu's avatar

Russia has always been the largest country on the planet, but it is not larger than the US and Canada combined, just 150% of the US.

Expand full comment
Just sayn's avatar

Small margin. though the point is who is the aggressor. Certainly not Russia.

Expand full comment
Vonu's avatar

Congratulations on winning the non-sequitur of the day award.

Expand full comment
Vonu's avatar

Scott Ritter and Andrew Napolitano were removed from a plane and their passports confiscated because they have been talking down the Biden administration's proxy NATO war against Russia.

Expand full comment
Sam's avatar

Napolitano was warned by Ritter that the guy who was going to sponsor them was arrested. Napolitano wasn’t on the plane and he talked about it on his show today with Ritter.

Expand full comment
russian_bot's avatar

Just another day for Gestapo.

Expand full comment
Vonu's avatar

When did the Gestapo prevent German citizens from leaving Germany by confiscating their passports in peacetime?

Expand full comment
russian_bot's avatar

Created in 1933. Was that a wartime? Are you saying they grew flowers during peacetime?

Expand full comment
Vonu's avatar

The CIA was created in similar manner by adding SS agents convicted at the Nuremberg trials to the OSS, instead of jailing or executing them, in Operation Paperclip.

Expand full comment
russian_bot's avatar

Thank you for recycling facts irrelevant to the thread.

Expand full comment
Vonu's avatar

I wanted to make certain you were fully supplied with your usual needs.

Expand full comment
bill wolfe's avatar

I just heard Napolitano say that his Russia trip was cancelled and the reason had nothing to do with him personally. If what you write were true, surely he would have said so.

Expand full comment
Vonu's avatar

You know him personally instead of relying on censored mainstream press reports?

How would being deplaned and his passport being confiscated have anything to do with him personally?

Expand full comment
bill wolfe's avatar

Watch his show with Larry Johnson yesterday: He said exactly what I wrote:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hXoM-vV_VY

Do you have links to support your claims?

Expand full comment
Vonu's avatar

I already provided it in my original post.

Expand full comment
bill wolfe's avatar

I just read the Ritter story on RT. No mention of Napolitano. Were they traveling together?

I doubt Napolitano would throw Ritter under the bus like that.

Expand full comment
Vonu's avatar

Have you read everything that Hal Turner has to say about it at halturnerradioshow.com?

Expand full comment
Sam's avatar

Have you listened to the judge? Maybe by now you have?

Expand full comment
Rodolfo Marusi Guareschi's avatar

The United States plays poker against those who know how to play chess, boxing against oriental martial arts. Bad if it's a bluff, worse if it's not.

Expand full comment
August West's avatar

If there is anyone out there who still believes they are participants in a democratic way of life, the unilateral decisions being made without debate in their name should be a wake up. We are rendered impotent.

War gives the oligarchic authoritarian west meaning.

Expand full comment
7swordMary's avatar

THIS IS WHY SUCH BILLIONAIRE THIEVES MUST NEVER BE PERMITTED TO EXIST.

Time to END MassMurder SLAUGHTER, of Innocent Civilians, and target drone those who Perpetrate & Perpetuate HumanSacrifice SNUF PROPAGANDA in order to “$$ecure” the Global Profits Monopoly of a CRIMINALLY Depraved, TotalitarianFascist InsiderTrader WEALTH $$upremacy.

Expand full comment
pyrrhus's avatar

I doubt a single F-16 will survive reaching the Ukraine or ever be utilized, due to its need for antiseptic runways...The real danger is F-16s flying missions from Poland, which would result in Polish air bases being obliterated by Russian missiles...Poland could then declare Article 5...but NATO's conventional forces can't threaten Russia, so possible nuclear escalation....

Expand full comment
Too much work's avatar

They're already there and quickly becoming scrap

Expand full comment
mois78's avatar

The leadership and the elites have bunkers to protect them, while the poor public will get destroyed.

Expand full comment
Lou Pintada's avatar

Don't worry, the bunkers won't help.

Expand full comment
jamenta's avatar

That's what I don't get. There is more riding on this than all the ordinary peasants getting killed. Don't the billionaires also care what happens to them and their land and mansions and jets and yachts? Not to mention children?

Expand full comment
Oregonian's avatar

That is why they want a “low boil”. They don’t want to have it boil over, just a slow gentle global depopulation.

Expand full comment
Too much work's avatar

No

Expand full comment
sifubernie's avatar

Arrogant idiotic fools. Did they forget the "Horishima and Nagasaki" precedent? Hopefully Putin will nail these mthfkrs first.

Expand full comment
djean111's avatar

The fools are literally using Nagasaki and Hiroshima as GOOD examples of how to kill lots of people as a great way to obtain peace. Nagasaki and Hiroshima are being whitewashed - IMO, as a lead-up to justify dropping nukes on civilians again. IMO, both Zelensky and Biden dream of nuking Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Expand full comment