You could have said that the Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics which were formed after the US-sponsored Maidan coup in Ukraine had asked for recognition by the Russian Federation shortly after the coup in 2014. You could have added that the Russian Federation said no, choosing to engage with the unelected regime in Ukraine and its US/NATO backers for an agreement which would have guaranteed some autonomy to those self-declared republics by Ukraine, especially allowing the continued use of the Russian language in them, and that this came to fruition in the Minsk Agreement. You could have added that Russia watched as Ukraine ignored the agreement, and continuously attacked those areas for the next 7 years, and was beginning an attack on them in earnest last February, and that the enormous pressure on Putin from the Russian Duma to help their Russian countrymen in those self- declared republics finally resulted in the Russian Federation recognizing the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk before Russia sent in its troops, at the request of those republics. So, technically, it was not even an invasion. You could have said all of that, but you didn’t- maybe because your critics’ heads would have exploded. So, I have.
From the USA's standpoint no elections matter anywhere (including the US) unless they match the US rulers aims. Heck, they'll even assign heads of state with the European lackeys dutifully joining in. Remember Juan Guaido in Venezuela?
The 1975 coup in Australia comes to mind, as well as machinations in Germany in the 1970s and 1980s.
Edit: I could also bring up the hobbling of the British government in the early 1970s, but, to be fair, that seems to have been something that MI5 did on its own, at least from what I can tell.
You may have mentioned the Corbin character assassination by M15? by falsely accusing him of anti semitism and removing him from the Opposition Labour Party a couple years ago.
The English just denied their young people a democracy and a say in their future.
No, Inwas thinking of how MI5 and the British military conspired to prevent the UK from leaving Northern Ireland after the Bloody Sunday massacre in 1972.
Although the Corbyn case is arguably even more instructive.
Unless working class interests are aligned with the wealthy/corporate/billionaire class’ interests, they won’t be served by legislation, policy, or SCOTUS decision. And even then, that alignment must be framed to have arisen in the US public’s immersion in the most powerful and pervasive yet unrecognized propaganda apparatus the world has ever seen.
Regarding Neo-Nazis thing you should do a lot research and do not believe propaganda on any sides.
I did a lot, I mean really a lot.
I found the research by Volodymyr Ishchenko most comprehensive and serious. There are others also.
Volodymyr Ishchenko, a Ukrainian sociologist and expert at the Institute of East European Studies, Free University of Berlin, says that the Kremlin’s fixation on the WWII metaphor for the current military operation is more than just a convenient pretext, but it is rooted in the Russian regime’s lack of post-Soviet legitimacy.
"Soviet achievements like the victory over Nazi Germany are “fundamental for Russians to understand who they are,” he says. “Nazis are absolute enemies. You can’t do anything with Nazis other than defeat them. This Soviet frame is very powerful; indeed, no other one would work [to rationalize the military operation against Ukraine."
"I personally have written against simplistic interpretations of Euromaidan, which part of the Western Left mistakenly saw as a coup supported by the West, just as the separatist republics in Donbas were seen as proto-socialist states, while in reality they are puppets of a very non-socialist Russian regime. But discussing the guilt of Western leftists as Putin’s useful idiots in this moment is very damaging to the Left. The debate over underestimating Russian imperialism is important, but it should not be conducted in moments of high emotions and using moral blackmail […] The Left needs offensive arguments. We must not agree to a ban on discussions about the complicity of NATO and the post-Maidan regime in Ukraine, about the reasons for not implementing the Minsk Agreement, or on NATO–Russia relations. That would mean capitulation – especially in Eastern Europe, where in the coming era of neo-McCarthyism, it might no longer be possible to put forward even basic left-wing arguments without being accused of being a Russian spy."
Volodymyr Ishchenko, Ukrainian socialist intellectual, 14 March 2022
Many of his articles are on internet and it easy to find them, just type in google his name.
But I will post just a few. Some are older one printed before the war.
"If we’re going to talk about Nazis, what Putin’s soldiers are doing in Ukraine right now is a hell of a lot closer to what the Nazis did than one young and distraught TV journalist’s ugly outburst."
And when we are talking about Nazis and denazification as many said "it should start at home in Russia".
Regarding Lugansk and Donetsk, after justified anti-Maidan protest some protesters were starting using force occupying town halls, as those in Maidan, and Ukraine state intervined, as any state should intervine. The question is , was that intervention appropriate, maybe too much force was used. But the truth is that Russia was involved from beginning sending various armed forces inside of Ukraine. After that there was a civil war in Donbas where Ukrainian state army was defeated but Russian forces which included full support from Russian army from Russia. Without the involvement of Russian state in things that are Ukrainian matters and should be resolved by Ukrainians ( Russians in Donbas are also Ukrainians) there wouldn't be a civil war and also this war of Russian aggression.
How would you describe the interim government that then took power?
"I don’t agree with the idea that this was a fascist coup. The word ‘coup’ implies that there was some well-organized, armed seizure of power planned from above, and that was not what happened. The far right were certainly prominent in the new government: the interim president, prime minister and several other ministers were from Tymoshenko’s party, but Svoboda had four cabinet positions—deputy prime minister, minister of defence, minister of agriculture, minister of the environment—plus the prosecutor-generalship. There were also several people not from Svoboda but with a far-right background: Serhiy Kvit, the education minister, was formerly a middle-ranking officer in Trident, though he probably left many years ago; Andriy Parubiy, the head of the National Security and Defence Council, was one of the founders of the Social-National Party, and led their paramilitary youth wing, Patriot of Ukraine, before joining Batkivshchyna. He was also commander of the Maidan self-defence groups. Or there’s Tetiana Chornovol, a journalist who was kidnapped from the Maidan by the authorities and beaten severely in December—she used to be press secretary of the far-right una–unso, and became head of the National Anti-Corruption Committee in March. But the government is better characterized as neoliberal than far-right. Their economic programme was essentially one of austerity measures: they accepted all the credit conditions imposed by the imf—increasing public utility tariffs, freezing wages, cutting a whole range of benefits. It was a programme that would put the burden of the economic crisis on the poor.
From that point of view, the Russian annexation of Crimea happened at a very opportune moment for the new government, because it helped give it national legitimacy, pushing social issues into the background and uniting people against foreign intervention. Some people began to volunteer for the army and the newly established National Guard, and there were mass rallies in support of the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. At the same time, Ukraine quickly began to polarize. There had been ‘anti-Maidan’ rallies in the east—Kharkiv, Donetsk, Luhansk, Dnipropetrovsk—since late 2013, though these were largely orchestrated by Yanukovych and the ruling Party of Regions. After Yanukovych was toppled, the mobilizations in the east became more decentralized, with a more grassroots character, and more intense—especially with the Russian intervention in Crimea. There was a lot of opposition to the new government, and demands for more devolution of power to the regions."
Perhaps this is too serious an analysis of the events in Ukraine. You prefer superficial analyzes from Caitlin, who is obviously not at all well informed about what happened in Ukraine in 2014 and what is happening in Russia.
I sent this earlier but maybe you did not read it.
For the drivel you paste and time you take you should solicit employment, as if you are not paid for this you are truly stupid. Call Kyiv. They have funds.
Your ideas might have some relevance if IF the history of the usa was different. It is not. The usa does coups like people breathe. The usa did the same thing to the people of Aghanistan in the 1970/80s and they bragged about how they cared not at all that Afghans would be killed as long as these world leading by many country miles, evil bastards got to give Russia "their own Vietnam". Consider that, the usa monsters were the ones who did Vietnam, people who begged scummy usa to help them gain their independence like the usa had gotten from the brits.
The tripe you wrote fails to take into account that the usa NEVER does, has NEVER done anything that can be called " a force for good", 'cause good just ain't in the usa.
How many countries blow up their own citizens into pieces so tiny that still today, over 20 years gone, some 40% of those exploded in the Twin Towers have never been IDed.
Just to add regarding The US has NEVER done anything that can be called " a force for good". Yes the US is evil empire but once I supported them in one action and that was bombing Serbian position in Bosnia in august 1995 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Deliberate_Force#:. That was NATO operation, but it was a the US initiative, because Europe had nothing against the destruction of Bosnia. Maybe that's what Clinton needed before the election.
Otherwise, the Serbian forces in Bosnia should have been bombed in 1992 when they set out to destroy Bosnia and Herzegovina and began to carry out genocide against Muslims. The CIA was watching everything and knew what was happening, but nothing was done to stop the genocide, only then was the name ethnic cleansing invented, because if it was called genocide, then the great powers had an obligation to stop it. So the US, together with its European allies, continued to observe the destruction and bleeding in B&H, insisting on the ethnic division of B&H together with Europe, and only finally intervened in 1995, when all of B&H was destroyed and then they imposed the straitjacket on the Bosnians,the Dayton Agreement that stopped the war but cemented the ethnic division of Bosnia.
Just to add regarding The US has NEVER done anything that can be called " a force for good". Yes the US is evil empire but once I supported them in one action and that was bombing Serbian position in Bosnia in august 1995
=======
I note that you were not able to provide anything for the usa that can be called " a force for good". That is because there is nothing. Pure evil from the Founding Genocidists/Liars/ Terrorists/... to this day and on into the future unless people speak up and end usa brainwashing of much of the world. The alternative is our nuke deaths.
No point talking to me about the US..I was protesting the US imperialistic wars from 1967, the war in Vietnam and all others. I am leftist and I know all about American imperialism. But you should learn also about other imperialisms , Russian for instance and Putin imperialistic goals that he try to achieve in Ukraine.
Russia is doing a purely defensive action which it is allowed to do in international law. Yugoslavia was JUST another massive usa set of war crimes, more actions, terrorist actions which were directed at Russia.
When the usa speaks the usa is lying. A couple of dandy examples. 1. No Tiananmen Square "massacre" but 33 years of usa lies. Who says it never happened - all the western reporters, honest ones, who were there. 2. usa State Terrorism against China on Taiwan, which is now and has always been a province of China. Who says so? The usa and the UN. And most of the world. 3. usa how many decades of usa State Terrorism in Tibet, which is part of China. Who says so, the usa, the Dalia Lama.
1) Ukraine's LEGALLY ELECTED government would not have been overturned in an ILLEGAL COUP in 2014 if not for American neocons orchestrating it.
2) Ethnic Russians, who make up a majority in the Donbass, had been bombed relentlessly for the past 8 years by the Ukrainian military, led by the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion and funded by Washington. Thousands had been killed. If anything, Putin showed exceptional patience and waited too long to stop it.
3) Would Washington have put up with Russia arming Mexico and turning it into a hostile client state on our southern border? The answer is obvious.
4) It is the American neocons, who control NATO with an iron fist, who are responsible for tens of thousands of Ukrainian deaths as well as the demolition of the Nordstream pipeline. This war, which wouldn't have started in the first place if not for the delusional belief in AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM, could have ended months ago in negotiations but the blood thirsty neocons would not allow it to end until Putin is overthrown and Russia is defeated. That's a fantasy and isn't gonna happen. There are too many other points to list here.
As pointed out previously, the 2014 coup demonstrated that it didn't matter who won the elections in Ukraine, as they would not be permitted to exercise power except as permitted by Washington.
I do not believe Russia is much of the problem. If Putin wanted war and more territory, he has had decades to amass an assault. He is mostly reacting to Ukranian and NATO terrorism.
And Russia has constantly been complaining and objecting and warning about all those expansion and preparation moves. The western media consciously ignored it and to the western populace everything happening now is as if out of the blue.
The lack of critical thought that these arguments show tells me that a large part of US/Western populations are simply incapable of anything more than impulsive 'thinking.' Probably a result of having their senses bombarded by loud noises and shiny things on their electronic devices since childhood. It's the immediate gratification that matters, which only creates a need for more of the same. We've become a nation of 3 year olds who throw temper tantrums to get our way. Even the more thoughtful leftists have fallen into the trap. They should know better, but this conflict, unlike Iraq where the US itself put sent its own military to bring Iraq into line, is a proxy conflict, giving them a chance to indulge in plausible deniability. The problem for those who once opposed the US invasion of Iraq is that Ukraine presents them with a stark choice: you either come to grips with the criminality of the US empire as the single most destructive agent in the world, or you give in to the propaganda and go with the flow. There is no middle ground.
Our political class does not govern. It entertains. It plays its assigned role in our fictitious democracy, howling with outrage to constituents and selling them out. The Squad and the Progressive Caucus have no more intention of fighting for universal health care, workers’ rights or defying the war machine than the Freedom Caucus fights for freedom. These political hacks are modern versions of Sinclair Lewis’s slick con artist Elmer Gantry, cynically betraying a gullible public to amass personal power and wealth. This moral vacuity provides the spectacle, as H.G. Wells wrote, of “a great material civilization, halted, paralyzed.” It happened in Ancient Rome. It happened in Weimar Germany. It is happening here.
Governance exists. But it is not seen. It is certainly not democratic. It is done by the armies of lobbyists and corporate executives, from the fossil fuel industry, the arms industry, the pharmaceutical industry and Wall Street. Governance happens in secret. Corporations have seized the levers of power, including the media. Growing obscenely rich, the ruling oligarchs have deformed national institutions, including state and federal legislatures and the courts, to serve their insatiable greed. They know what they are doing. They understand the depths of their own corruption. They know they are hated. They are prepared for that too. They have militarized police forces and have built a vast archipelago of prisons to keep the unemployed and underemployed in bondage. All the while, they pay little to no income tax and exploit sweatshop labor overseas. They lavishly bankroll the political clowns who speak in the vulgar and crude idiom of an enraged public or in the dulcet tones used to mollify the liberal class.
Donald Trump’s seminal contribution to the political landscape is the license to say in public what political decorum once prohibited. His legacy is the degradation of political discourse to the monosyllabic tirades of Shakespeare’s Caliban, which simultaneously scandalize and energize the kabuki theater that passes for government. This burlesque differs little from the German Reichstag, where the final cri de coeur by a mortally ill Clara Zetkin against fascism on August 30, 1932, was met with a chorus of taunts, insults and jeers by Nazi deputies. ARTICLE BY CHRIS HEDGES....
I didn't even need to get to the bottom of this to know who wrote it since the accuracy and quality leaves no doubt of the author! Love his humanity and the truth from every single word!
Well said! I am constantly surprised just how literary many of the commentators are on Caitoz' substack here in the comments section. She attracts quite a crowd of semi-intelligent rebels.
It is also akin to criticizing oneself as opposed to the "other". Like seeing the log in one's own eye rather than the speck in the "other". I know more about the West because I live in it and have traveled in it. I have never visited Russia or China (unfortunately), do not speak their languages and have rarely read or seen enough info about their histories and cultures, other than western viewpoints and movies.
Thank you Carol. Your comment is the smartest one on here. We can only know the “other” by knowing ourselves. I think that’s Caitlyn’s point too. And I would even go so far as to say that anything we know about Russia and China, their history and culture, are filtered thru the wildly distorting MIC Amurikan intellectual class who have always pandered to the elites and were only challenged by Howard Zinn. Even Chomsky alway has his obligatory mention of Russia’s “attack” on Ukraine. He used to be insightful. Now he’s just an old man.
I’ve spent a lot of time in the good ole US of A and I still don’t get us. Especially the White Boys mans’planing the World to others because they’ve spent a lot of time there.
While I have never had the opportunity to go to Russia I do know of their culture and some history. This is the first thing out of US mouths that never once is taken into consideration. When you listen to Mr. Putin you truly need to understand where he is coming from which is this very important thing I am referring to here "History and Culture". The US has no real history beyond 200 years (most of that warfare) and the other is Mr. Putin loves his country. People here may think they are "Patriots" when they are nothing more than chattel for the Criminal Elite.
I have however been to China (spent 2 months there (sorry the language is just beyond me) and the lies told to the people of the US run too deep to get beyond the "WhatAboutism" referred to here!)
Hey David, thanks for sharing your valuable thoughts. Here's what I think about it:
We cannot convince someone as long as he is not willing to be convinced, as long as he is not ready to come out of his beliefs and conditioning. We can put a mountain of data and logic in front of him and he would still not change if he doesn't want to consider the possibility that he might be wrong. But our ego never wants to admit that it's wrong; it keeps on putting forward different logics - no matter how illogical they are - to keep the person from changing.
In order for a cancer patient to be treated, he first has to consent to the treatment. He has to agree that he has cancer before he can be sent to hospital. But if he's heavily conditioned against medical science, diagnosis, doctors, etc. he will never say he has the cancer. We can't convince that guy. For him to have the treatment, he himself must have this consideration that he might be wrong.
You can also check my Substack publication called "The Great Awakening "
About that reluctant cancer victim... great example and I think I see what you mean. It reminds me of Christian sects in the US that believe all medical treatment is the way of unbelief (or something).
There might be a way to persuade the patient. You gotta get inside the person's head. This takes time and it involves a lot of listening. Maybe you could find something that they are so stubbornly sure about - something they would never deny - and that thing is a compelling reason for treatment.
This should not be necessary (in a wiser world) but as it is NOT a wiser world....this is helpful ! Thanks! It works to bolster our own views which you so eloquently express!
No country is perfect, but the fact is, the great proportion of Russians back Putin and Russia, and more so since the admission by Merkel and Holland - Murky and Hollow, that the Minsk Accords were a complete fraud from the start, and in keeping with the aim of conquering Russia by forcing it into war with Ukraine, and from there into regime change, division into three, and complete submission to Western exploitation, as in the almost successful attempt in 1991 with the drunken Yeltsin. That is the truth, and there is nothing that allows for a "moderate, two-side approach": Russia is right, and the West and its lackey, Ukraine (without the approval of it citizens - as in the free vote the West holds sacrosanct when it serves its purposes) are totally, completely wrong, without merit, and mere clowns on the International stage. Yes, some agreement between the two would be great, but on Russia's terms. Criticize Russia? FOR WHAT? For wanting to survive, intact?
Yup. Many of these arguments are overlapping, but the one that resonates most for me right now is the "you look bad..." one, which is an appeal to a now prevalent mental and moral trap called "equity". People in this trap are lacking self awareness and unlikely to "find themselves" in this trap. But until they do, they will be unable to participate in any real movement toward sanity, freedom, economic security and so on. So Caitlin, by triggering these folks and eliciting that particular response, you are actually creating the context for the needed growth, although the prospects are practically nil. Still, it is in a sense precisely the most important thing you could do.
People just wanna hear the same complaints so they don’t have to think. Switch it up and they start having to analyze your analysis and that’s too much work for most people <3
In light of everything that's been happening with the virus the water situation cannot be dismissed.
There's this Environmental Working Group that claims government's accepted levels of contaminants exceed healthy ones. Whatever that might mean. The US folks can put their zip codes here to check it out:
While I was truly being sarcastic, I know from childhood experience and later as an adult (who has worked in the Water/Waste Water industry) this has been an issue in this country for well nigh 100 years! It would take no effort at all for anyone (or criminal government department) to add anything at all to the water supply. As a very minor example the bacteria which cause common diarrhea is not required to be filtered out of drinking water!
The water there came from a source likely similarly spec'd. Plus you have office buddies around the cooler with their share of contaminants in the form of conversation 😳
"Throwing your weight behind "Russia bad!" messaging in such an environment is an irresponsible use of your voice, especially when you could be using your voice to call for de-escalation, diplomacy and detente and help people understand that they are being deceived."
Amen! If more of us would speak out and wake up those who have fallen into the sleep-inducing propaganda of the Western war machine, then all wars would stop because we'd realized that we've all been used by like pawns by the military industrial complex in order to fill their pockets with blood-soaked profits.
De-escalation, diplomacy, and detente will prevent further deceptions! Power to the people!
You could have said that the Lugansk and Donetsk People’s Republics which were formed after the US-sponsored Maidan coup in Ukraine had asked for recognition by the Russian Federation shortly after the coup in 2014. You could have added that the Russian Federation said no, choosing to engage with the unelected regime in Ukraine and its US/NATO backers for an agreement which would have guaranteed some autonomy to those self-declared republics by Ukraine, especially allowing the continued use of the Russian language in them, and that this came to fruition in the Minsk Agreement. You could have added that Russia watched as Ukraine ignored the agreement, and continuously attacked those areas for the next 7 years, and was beginning an attack on them in earnest last February, and that the enormous pressure on Putin from the Russian Duma to help their Russian countrymen in those self- declared republics finally resulted in the Russian Federation recognizing the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk before Russia sent in its troops, at the request of those republics. So, technically, it was not even an invasion. You could have said all of that, but you didn’t- maybe because your critics’ heads would have exploded. So, I have.
The coup demonstrated to the people in Donbass that it didn't matter who won the election, as the United States would rule in Ukraine.
From the USA's standpoint no elections matter anywhere (including the US) unless they match the US rulers aims. Heck, they'll even assign heads of state with the European lackeys dutifully joining in. Remember Juan Guaido in Venezuela?
And it isn't limited to Third World countries.
The 1975 coup in Australia comes to mind, as well as machinations in Germany in the 1970s and 1980s.
Edit: I could also bring up the hobbling of the British government in the early 1970s, but, to be fair, that seems to have been something that MI5 did on its own, at least from what I can tell.
You may have mentioned the Corbin character assassination by M15? by falsely accusing him of anti semitism and removing him from the Opposition Labour Party a couple years ago.
The English just denied their young people a democracy and a say in their future.
Unbelievable but true.
No, Inwas thinking of how MI5 and the British military conspired to prevent the UK from leaving Northern Ireland after the Bloody Sunday massacre in 1972.
Although the Corbyn case is arguably even more instructive.
Yes, the princeton study demonstrated this:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/perspectives-on-politics/article/testing-theories-of-american-politics-elites-interest-groups-and-average-citizens/62327F513959D0A304D4893B382B992B
Unless working class interests are aligned with the wealthy/corporate/billionaire class’ interests, they won’t be served by legislation, policy, or SCOTUS decision. And even then, that alignment must be framed to have arisen in the US public’s immersion in the most powerful and pervasive yet unrecognized propaganda apparatus the world has ever seen.
Thank you Andrew, that puts it in its proper perspective.
Thank you for the compliment.
Man, you TOTALLY forgot the whole neo-Nazis thing. That once really gets 'em riled up.
Regarding Neo-Nazis thing you should do a lot research and do not believe propaganda on any sides.
I did a lot, I mean really a lot.
I found the research by Volodymyr Ishchenko most comprehensive and serious. There are others also.
Volodymyr Ishchenko, a Ukrainian sociologist and expert at the Institute of East European Studies, Free University of Berlin, says that the Kremlin’s fixation on the WWII metaphor for the current military operation is more than just a convenient pretext, but it is rooted in the Russian regime’s lack of post-Soviet legitimacy.
"Soviet achievements like the victory over Nazi Germany are “fundamental for Russians to understand who they are,” he says. “Nazis are absolute enemies. You can’t do anything with Nazis other than defeat them. This Soviet frame is very powerful; indeed, no other one would work [to rationalize the military operation against Ukraine."
"I personally have written against simplistic interpretations of Euromaidan, which part of the Western Left mistakenly saw as a coup supported by the West, just as the separatist republics in Donbas were seen as proto-socialist states, while in reality they are puppets of a very non-socialist Russian regime. But discussing the guilt of Western leftists as Putin’s useful idiots in this moment is very damaging to the Left. The debate over underestimating Russian imperialism is important, but it should not be conducted in moments of high emotions and using moral blackmail […] The Left needs offensive arguments. We must not agree to a ban on discussions about the complicity of NATO and the post-Maidan regime in Ukraine, about the reasons for not implementing the Minsk Agreement, or on NATO–Russia relations. That would mean capitulation – especially in Eastern Europe, where in the coming era of neo-McCarthyism, it might no longer be possible to put forward even basic left-wing arguments without being accused of being a Russian spy."
Volodymyr Ishchenko, Ukrainian socialist intellectual, 14 March 2022
Many of his articles are on internet and it easy to find them, just type in google his name.
But I will post just a few. Some are older one printed before the war.
https://internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article3999
https://voxukraine.org/en/denial-of-the-obvious-far-right-in-maidan-protests-and-their-danger-today/
https://fpc.org.uk/the-unique-extra-parliamentary-power-of-ukrainian-radical-nationalists-is-a-threat-to-the-political-regime-and-minorities/
You can find many articles from him on different topics here
https://lefteast.org/author/volodymyr-ishchenko/
https://jacobin.com/2022/03/ukraine-socialist-interview-russian-invasion-war-putin-nato-imperialism
Volodymyr Ishchenko is socialist and if you do not like them you can try others ,but many are using his analysis.
I also like analysis of Caty Young . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cathy_Young, born in Russia, with Jewish background but a good researcher and analyst.
https://www.thebulwark.com/heroes-of-mariupol-or-neo-nazi-menace/
https://www.thebulwark.com/what-really-happened-in-ukraine-in-2014-and-since-then/
https://www.thebulwark.com/digging-into-russias-latest-charge-of-ukrainian-nazis/
"If we’re going to talk about Nazis, what Putin’s soldiers are doing in Ukraine right now is a hell of a lot closer to what the Nazis did than one young and distraught TV journalist’s ugly outburst."
And when we are talking about Nazis and denazification as many said "it should start at home in Russia".
https://rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/if-russia-serious-about-de-nazification-it-should-start-home
https://www.rferl.org/a/zizek-interview-russia-denazification-ukraine-war/32204259.html
https://newint.org/features/2022/06/08/feature-who-are-you-calling-nazi-ukraine-russia
Regarding Lugansk and Donetsk, after justified anti-Maidan protest some protesters were starting using force occupying town halls, as those in Maidan, and Ukraine state intervined, as any state should intervine. The question is , was that intervention appropriate, maybe too much force was used. But the truth is that Russia was involved from beginning sending various armed forces inside of Ukraine. After that there was a civil war in Donbas where Ukrainian state army was defeated but Russian forces which included full support from Russian army from Russia. Without the involvement of Russian state in things that are Ukrainian matters and should be resolved by Ukrainians ( Russians in Donbas are also Ukrainians) there wouldn't be a civil war and also this war of Russian aggression.
Instead of repeating Putin's propaganda you could read a little Ukrainian propaganda. Here is one, not official one, some anarchist view https://crimethinc.com/2022/02/15/war-and-anarchists-anti-authoritarian-perspectives-in-ukraine
"Ukraine state intervined, as any state should intervine" - do you realize that at that point the "Ukraine state" was illegal due to the coup?
It was an illegal cup only for Putin fans, like you, https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/why-do-the-left-and-right-love-putin/
and those who believe in Putin's propaganda.
https://znetwork.org/znetarticle/whose-coups/
Let me treat you seriously even though you don't deserve it.
What does a socialist, one of the greatest critics of the current Ukrainian regime, says about it.
https://twitter.com/Volod_Ishchenko/status/1491495828657254403
https://www.academia.edu/40165681/Ukrainian_Capitalism_and_Inter_Imperialist_Rivalry
"The popular argument about Maidan as a Western-driven coup d’etat via intentional democracy
promotion and color revolution “technology” is so
far insufficiently grounded. Indeed, all the “usual
suspects” like the National Endowment for
Democracy, USAID, and George Soros’ International Renaissance Foundation as well as many
EU donors have long supported Ukrainian (neo)
liberal NGOs. As Victoria Nuland, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs,
famously recognized in December 2013, the USA
spent nearly 5 billion dollars on democracy promotion programs in Ukraine since its independence (de Ploeg 2017, pp. 54–58; Hahn 2018,
Chapter 6). And indeed, such programs facilitate
trasformismo and passive revolution, i.e., they
help gradually transform public consciousness
toward favoring marketization reforms over state
ownership of industry, “free market” versus state
regulation of economic activity, and capitalist
over socialist politics. However, the actual role
of pro-Western NGOs in the Maidan uprising is
usually exaggerated in this narrative. The institutionalized civil society in Ukraine has been weak
and split because of the detachment from the
grassroot protest initiatives and actual concerns
of the majority of citizens (Ishchenko 2017, pp.
216–218). During Maidan protests, (neo)liberal
NGOs did not play any outstanding role in mass
mobilization of protesters: not more than 9% of
protesters in Kiev claimed membership in any
civic organization; not more than 14% who came
from the provinces to Kiev were organized by any
civic organization or movement (Kiev International Institute of Sociology 2014a). The NGOs
were not indispensable in maintaining Maidan
mobilization and protest camps: the opposition
party resources and crowdfunding were more
important. Neither have they played any significant role in violent clashes with the riot police –
nor enticed these clashes – the radical nationalists
played the vanguard role in the armed uprising.
Only 17% of protesters in Kiev claimed that when
figuring out when and where they should go to
join the protests, have they used any form of
online TV channels that had appeared on the eve
of Maidan protests and were often supported by
Western donors (the role of traditional radio/TV,
Facebook, and family connections was mentioned
far more often) (Onuch 2015, p. 228). Last but not
least, NGO activists are not necessarily direct
agents of their donors and often possess a high
degree of autonomy. With their connections, communication skills and good English, the (neo)liberal NGOs were important primarily in
communicating to the Western officials, media,
and public opinion an attractive image of “a democratic, diverse, peaceful revolution of Ukrainian people against an authoritarian dictatorship” that
helped legitimize international support for
Maidan, even though they were only representing
a small, and not even the most important, segment
of the protest mobilization. The majority of protesters were a mixed (if skewed to western and central regions) demographic of citizens with a
complex mix of socioeconomic and anti-authoritarian grievances and pro-EU and anti-Russian nationalist sentiments.
Support for Maidan protesters by Western officials was also inconsistent. Their major official position was a political compromise between
Yanukovych and the opposition, presupposing a
limitation of the president’s power and the opposition’s involvement into the government. Western officials supported “European aspirations” of
Maidan protesters and condemned governmental
repressions; however, they also criticized the violent radicals from the Right Sector and were skeptical about the far-right Svoboda party (US
Department of State 2014). A lot of noise has
been made about the mid-protest appearances of
a number of US and EU officials, members of
parliaments at Kiev Maidan camp (see the list, e.
g., in de Ploeg 2017, pp. 58–59); however, this
presence was limited to symbolic support of the
protesters in order to put pressure on the government and prevent repressions. It is also questionable to which extent these symbolic appearances
were coordinated with the Western governments.
The first visa sanctions against several Ukrainian
officials, which the USA believed responsible for
the repressions, were introduced only by late January after the first fatalities. Only after the massacre of dozens of protesters and law enforcement
officers in Kiev by snipers, who are still
unidentified, on February 20, 2014, has the EU
decided to freeze assets of Yanukovych associates,
while the USA expanded visa sanctions to 20 Ukrainian officials.
Of course, the talk about sanctions from Western officials did produce pressure on pro-Yanukovych fraction of the Ukrainian
ruling class, likely saving a large part of their
assets in Western countries. Moreover, both the
EU and the US de facto recognized the unconstitutional vote to remove Yanukovych from his seat on February 22, despite the president-opposition
agreement, signed just one day before that. Nonetheless, the inconsistencies and contradictions in Western support of Maidan, cautiousness with
sanctions, and skepticism toward the radical
wing of the protesters do not fit the narrative
about a purposeful Western-driven coup d’etat in
Ukraine but rather point toward improvisation and
adaptation of the EU and the US officials to the
escalating developments in Ukraine, with them
eventually seizing an opportunity to get a loyal
government in Ukraine."
or in his interview here
https://internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article3887
How would you describe the interim government that then took power?
"I don’t agree with the idea that this was a fascist coup. The word ‘coup’ implies that there was some well-organized, armed seizure of power planned from above, and that was not what happened. The far right were certainly prominent in the new government: the interim president, prime minister and several other ministers were from Tymoshenko’s party, but Svoboda had four cabinet positions—deputy prime minister, minister of defence, minister of agriculture, minister of the environment—plus the prosecutor-generalship. There were also several people not from Svoboda but with a far-right background: Serhiy Kvit, the education minister, was formerly a middle-ranking officer in Trident, though he probably left many years ago; Andriy Parubiy, the head of the National Security and Defence Council, was one of the founders of the Social-National Party, and led their paramilitary youth wing, Patriot of Ukraine, before joining Batkivshchyna. He was also commander of the Maidan self-defence groups. Or there’s Tetiana Chornovol, a journalist who was kidnapped from the Maidan by the authorities and beaten severely in December—she used to be press secretary of the far-right una–unso, and became head of the National Anti-Corruption Committee in March. But the government is better characterized as neoliberal than far-right. Their economic programme was essentially one of austerity measures: they accepted all the credit conditions imposed by the imf—increasing public utility tariffs, freezing wages, cutting a whole range of benefits. It was a programme that would put the burden of the economic crisis on the poor.
From that point of view, the Russian annexation of Crimea happened at a very opportune moment for the new government, because it helped give it national legitimacy, pushing social issues into the background and uniting people against foreign intervention. Some people began to volunteer for the army and the newly established National Guard, and there were mass rallies in support of the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. At the same time, Ukraine quickly began to polarize. There had been ‘anti-Maidan’ rallies in the east—Kharkiv, Donetsk, Luhansk, Dnipropetrovsk—since late 2013, though these were largely orchestrated by Yanukovych and the ruling Party of Regions. After Yanukovych was toppled, the mobilizations in the east became more decentralized, with a more grassroots character, and more intense—especially with the Russian intervention in Crimea. There was a lot of opposition to the new government, and demands for more devolution of power to the regions."
Perhaps this is too serious an analysis of the events in Ukraine. You prefer superficial analyzes from Caitlin, who is obviously not at all well informed about what happened in Ukraine in 2014 and what is happening in Russia.
I sent this earlier but maybe you did not read it.
https://bitterwinter.org/myth-of-american-coups-in-ukraine-3-euromaidan/
When you copy/paste from the dispatches you get make sure you remove linefeeds. Unless you are paid by line, that is.
I copy and paste for those who are lazy to read all aricles but as I can see you are only intersted on format not on a content.
And as I see, you seem to be well informed about what is paid.
Unfortunately, I don't have such experiences, and every dollar would be good for me.
For the drivel you paste and time you take you should solicit employment, as if you are not paid for this you are truly stupid. Call Kyiv. They have funds.
Your ideas might have some relevance if IF the history of the usa was different. It is not. The usa does coups like people breathe. The usa did the same thing to the people of Aghanistan in the 1970/80s and they bragged about how they cared not at all that Afghans would be killed as long as these world leading by many country miles, evil bastards got to give Russia "their own Vietnam". Consider that, the usa monsters were the ones who did Vietnam, people who begged scummy usa to help them gain their independence like the usa had gotten from the brits.
The tripe you wrote fails to take into account that the usa NEVER does, has NEVER done anything that can be called " a force for good", 'cause good just ain't in the usa.
How many countries blow up their own citizens into pieces so tiny that still today, over 20 years gone, some 40% of those exploded in the Twin Towers have never been IDed.
Just to add regarding The US has NEVER done anything that can be called " a force for good". Yes the US is evil empire but once I supported them in one action and that was bombing Serbian position in Bosnia in august 1995 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Deliberate_Force#:. That was NATO operation, but it was a the US initiative, because Europe had nothing against the destruction of Bosnia. Maybe that's what Clinton needed before the election.
Otherwise, the Serbian forces in Bosnia should have been bombed in 1992 when they set out to destroy Bosnia and Herzegovina and began to carry out genocide against Muslims. The CIA was watching everything and knew what was happening, but nothing was done to stop the genocide, only then was the name ethnic cleansing invented, because if it was called genocide, then the great powers had an obligation to stop it. So the US, together with its European allies, continued to observe the destruction and bleeding in B&H, insisting on the ethnic division of B&H together with Europe, and only finally intervened in 1995, when all of B&H was destroyed and then they imposed the straitjacket on the Bosnians,the Dayton Agreement that stopped the war but cemented the ethnic division of Bosnia.
Just to add regarding The US has NEVER done anything that can be called " a force for good". Yes the US is evil empire but once I supported them in one action and that was bombing Serbian position in Bosnia in august 1995
=======
I note that you were not able to provide anything for the usa that can be called " a force for good". That is because there is nothing. Pure evil from the Founding Genocidists/Liars/ Terrorists/... to this day and on into the future unless people speak up and end usa brainwashing of much of the world. The alternative is our nuke deaths.
No point talking to me about the US..I was protesting the US imperialistic wars from 1967, the war in Vietnam and all others. I am leftist and I know all about American imperialism. But you should learn also about other imperialisms , Russian for instance and Putin imperialistic goals that he try to achieve in Ukraine.
https://lefteast.org/what-the-left-gets-wrong-about-russia/
https://www.cetri.be/Ukraine-To-the-Western-left-on?lang=fr
https://www.focaalblog.com/2022/06/09/volodymyr-artiukh-the-political-logic-of-russias-imperialism/
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/odr/a-letter-to-the-western-left-from-kyiv/
"The ‘anti-imperialism of idiots’ meant people turned a blind eye to Russia’s actions"
Russia is doing a purely defensive action which it is allowed to do in international law. Yugoslavia was JUST another massive usa set of war crimes, more actions, terrorist actions which were directed at Russia.
When the usa speaks the usa is lying. A couple of dandy examples. 1. No Tiananmen Square "massacre" but 33 years of usa lies. Who says it never happened - all the western reporters, honest ones, who were there. 2. usa State Terrorism against China on Taiwan, which is now and has always been a province of China. Who says so? The usa and the UN. And most of the world. 3. usa how many decades of usa State Terrorism in Tibet, which is part of China. Who says so, the usa, the Dalia Lama.
You do not dispense authenticity, you TsIPSO piece of shit.
1) Ukraine's LEGALLY ELECTED government would not have been overturned in an ILLEGAL COUP in 2014 if not for American neocons orchestrating it.
2) Ethnic Russians, who make up a majority in the Donbass, had been bombed relentlessly for the past 8 years by the Ukrainian military, led by the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion and funded by Washington. Thousands had been killed. If anything, Putin showed exceptional patience and waited too long to stop it.
3) Would Washington have put up with Russia arming Mexico and turning it into a hostile client state on our southern border? The answer is obvious.
4) It is the American neocons, who control NATO with an iron fist, who are responsible for tens of thousands of Ukrainian deaths as well as the demolition of the Nordstream pipeline. This war, which wouldn't have started in the first place if not for the delusional belief in AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM, could have ended months ago in negotiations but the blood thirsty neocons would not allow it to end until Putin is overthrown and Russia is defeated. That's a fantasy and isn't gonna happen. There are too many other points to list here.
As pointed out previously, the 2014 coup demonstrated that it didn't matter who won the elections in Ukraine, as they would not be permitted to exercise power except as permitted by Washington.
Neocons vs neoliberal. Who do they work for? Who funds the NED? Where is the NED active.
Cui Bono
Errand Boys: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j_08qMnW7XI
You guys gotta expand your horizons and recognize, "It's the Oligarchy -- Stupid!"
3) I've made that sme comment many times. People can't seem to get it.
4) 15.000 prior to 02/24/2022, and at least ten times that number since. Almost 150.000 troops as of a week ago, plus an unknown number of civilians.
Doesn't the truth sting the ears of the self righteous? It did mine. Thank you for opening my eyes just a little wider.
I do not believe Russia is much of the problem. If Putin wanted war and more territory, he has had decades to amass an assault. He is mostly reacting to Ukranian and NATO terrorism.
And Russia has constantly been complaining and objecting and warning about all those expansion and preparation moves. The western media consciously ignored it and to the western populace everything happening now is as if out of the blue.
Thanks for being one of the few islands of sanity across the media wasteland 
Yes ... But - why don't you ever criticize RUSSIA'S warmongering? :P
😏
The lack of critical thought that these arguments show tells me that a large part of US/Western populations are simply incapable of anything more than impulsive 'thinking.' Probably a result of having their senses bombarded by loud noises and shiny things on their electronic devices since childhood. It's the immediate gratification that matters, which only creates a need for more of the same. We've become a nation of 3 year olds who throw temper tantrums to get our way. Even the more thoughtful leftists have fallen into the trap. They should know better, but this conflict, unlike Iraq where the US itself put sent its own military to bring Iraq into line, is a proxy conflict, giving them a chance to indulge in plausible deniability. The problem for those who once opposed the US invasion of Iraq is that Ukraine presents them with a stark choice: you either come to grips with the criminality of the US empire as the single most destructive agent in the world, or you give in to the propaganda and go with the flow. There is no middle ground.
Our political class does not govern. It entertains. It plays its assigned role in our fictitious democracy, howling with outrage to constituents and selling them out. The Squad and the Progressive Caucus have no more intention of fighting for universal health care, workers’ rights or defying the war machine than the Freedom Caucus fights for freedom. These political hacks are modern versions of Sinclair Lewis’s slick con artist Elmer Gantry, cynically betraying a gullible public to amass personal power and wealth. This moral vacuity provides the spectacle, as H.G. Wells wrote, of “a great material civilization, halted, paralyzed.” It happened in Ancient Rome. It happened in Weimar Germany. It is happening here.
Governance exists. But it is not seen. It is certainly not democratic. It is done by the armies of lobbyists and corporate executives, from the fossil fuel industry, the arms industry, the pharmaceutical industry and Wall Street. Governance happens in secret. Corporations have seized the levers of power, including the media. Growing obscenely rich, the ruling oligarchs have deformed national institutions, including state and federal legislatures and the courts, to serve their insatiable greed. They know what they are doing. They understand the depths of their own corruption. They know they are hated. They are prepared for that too. They have militarized police forces and have built a vast archipelago of prisons to keep the unemployed and underemployed in bondage. All the while, they pay little to no income tax and exploit sweatshop labor overseas. They lavishly bankroll the political clowns who speak in the vulgar and crude idiom of an enraged public or in the dulcet tones used to mollify the liberal class.
Donald Trump’s seminal contribution to the political landscape is the license to say in public what political decorum once prohibited. His legacy is the degradation of political discourse to the monosyllabic tirades of Shakespeare’s Caliban, which simultaneously scandalize and energize the kabuki theater that passes for government. This burlesque differs little from the German Reichstag, where the final cri de coeur by a mortally ill Clara Zetkin against fascism on August 30, 1932, was met with a chorus of taunts, insults and jeers by Nazi deputies. ARTICLE BY CHRIS HEDGES....
I didn't even need to get to the bottom of this to know who wrote it since the accuracy and quality leaves no doubt of the author! Love his humanity and the truth from every single word!
Well said! I am constantly surprised just how literary many of the commentators are on Caitoz' substack here in the comments section. She attracts quite a crowd of semi-intelligent rebels.
Imagine if the intelligent ones showed up. Wonder where those are hanging out.
Probably on some beach in Southern France, with the babes.
I do check out books mentioned by some commenters here and quite a few end up on my reading list.
books ?
Titles, mentions, references, ... Whatever handle one prefers.
Semi-intelligent? I am offended.
Statecraft is stagecraft.
It is also akin to criticizing oneself as opposed to the "other". Like seeing the log in one's own eye rather than the speck in the "other". I know more about the West because I live in it and have traveled in it. I have never visited Russia or China (unfortunately), do not speak their languages and have rarely read or seen enough info about their histories and cultures, other than western viewpoints and movies.
Thank you Carol. Your comment is the smartest one on here. We can only know the “other” by knowing ourselves. I think that’s Caitlyn’s point too. And I would even go so far as to say that anything we know about Russia and China, their history and culture, are filtered thru the wildly distorting MIC Amurikan intellectual class who have always pandered to the elites and were only challenged by Howard Zinn. Even Chomsky alway has his obligatory mention of Russia’s “attack” on Ukraine. He used to be insightful. Now he’s just an old man.
For whatever it's worth, I have spent more time in Russia and Ukraine than most.
I’ve spent a lot of time in the good ole US of A and I still don’t get us. Especially the White Boys mans’planing the World to others because they’ve spent a lot of time there.
While I have never had the opportunity to go to Russia I do know of their culture and some history. This is the first thing out of US mouths that never once is taken into consideration. When you listen to Mr. Putin you truly need to understand where he is coming from which is this very important thing I am referring to here "History and Culture". The US has no real history beyond 200 years (most of that warfare) and the other is Mr. Putin loves his country. People here may think they are "Patriots" when they are nothing more than chattel for the Criminal Elite.
I have however been to China (spent 2 months there (sorry the language is just beyond me) and the lies told to the people of the US run too deep to get beyond the "WhatAboutism" referred to here!)
"It is also akin to criticizing oneself as opposed to the "other". Like seeing the log in one's own eye rather than the speck in the "other"."
I read a comment recently refering to a lumber yard in that context. :-)
💯
The thing with ego is that it wants to point fingers, it wants to blame others for what's wrong but not itself.
Ego plays different mental games to show that it's always right, no matter what.
That's why people find it easy to criticize Russia but it becomes very difficult to do the same for the governments that are "ours."
I agree. Gotta take your interlocutor's ego into account if you want to persuade. I wonder how to game their ego into seeing our point of view...
Hey David, thanks for sharing your valuable thoughts. Here's what I think about it:
We cannot convince someone as long as he is not willing to be convinced, as long as he is not ready to come out of his beliefs and conditioning. We can put a mountain of data and logic in front of him and he would still not change if he doesn't want to consider the possibility that he might be wrong. But our ego never wants to admit that it's wrong; it keeps on putting forward different logics - no matter how illogical they are - to keep the person from changing.
In order for a cancer patient to be treated, he first has to consent to the treatment. He has to agree that he has cancer before he can be sent to hospital. But if he's heavily conditioned against medical science, diagnosis, doctors, etc. he will never say he has the cancer. We can't convince that guy. For him to have the treatment, he himself must have this consideration that he might be wrong.
You can also check my Substack publication called "The Great Awakening "
https://awakes.substack.com
Hey Harry, I'll check that out.
About that reluctant cancer victim... great example and I think I see what you mean. It reminds me of Christian sects in the US that believe all medical treatment is the way of unbelief (or something).
There might be a way to persuade the patient. You gotta get inside the person's head. This takes time and it involves a lot of listening. Maybe you could find something that they are so stubbornly sure about - something they would never deny - and that thing is a compelling reason for treatment.
I dunno.
Love your work
This should not be necessary (in a wiser world) but as it is NOT a wiser world....this is helpful ! Thanks! It works to bolster our own views which you so eloquently express!
Spot on
No country is perfect, but the fact is, the great proportion of Russians back Putin and Russia, and more so since the admission by Merkel and Holland - Murky and Hollow, that the Minsk Accords were a complete fraud from the start, and in keeping with the aim of conquering Russia by forcing it into war with Ukraine, and from there into regime change, division into three, and complete submission to Western exploitation, as in the almost successful attempt in 1991 with the drunken Yeltsin. That is the truth, and there is nothing that allows for a "moderate, two-side approach": Russia is right, and the West and its lackey, Ukraine (without the approval of it citizens - as in the free vote the West holds sacrosanct when it serves its purposes) are totally, completely wrong, without merit, and mere clowns on the International stage. Yes, some agreement between the two would be great, but on Russia's terms. Criticize Russia? FOR WHAT? For wanting to survive, intact?
Yup. Many of these arguments are overlapping, but the one that resonates most for me right now is the "you look bad..." one, which is an appeal to a now prevalent mental and moral trap called "equity". People in this trap are lacking self awareness and unlikely to "find themselves" in this trap. But until they do, they will be unable to participate in any real movement toward sanity, freedom, economic security and so on. So Caitlin, by triggering these folks and eliciting that particular response, you are actually creating the context for the needed growth, although the prospects are practically nil. Still, it is in a sense precisely the most important thing you could do.
People just wanna hear the same complaints so they don’t have to think. Switch it up and they start having to analyze your analysis and that’s too much work for most people <3
I think it must be the LSD in the water! Seems like there is a switch in people's heads that is on auto. Say this when you hear that.
In light of everything that's been happening with the virus the water situation cannot be dismissed.
There's this Environmental Working Group that claims government's accepted levels of contaminants exceed healthy ones. Whatever that might mean. The US folks can put their zip codes here to check it out:
https://www.ewg.org/tapwater/
While I was truly being sarcastic, I know from childhood experience and later as an adult (who has worked in the Water/Waste Water industry) this has been an issue in this country for well nigh 100 years! It would take no effort at all for anyone (or criminal government department) to add anything at all to the water supply. As a very minor example the bacteria which cause common diarrhea is not required to be filtered out of drinking water!
I got your sarcasm, for sure. I also now understand your nickname better as you no doubt try to filter out the content in the forum 😉
I am actually referring to the human form in nature!
Yea I drink from a office water cooler for a reason. Also it’s more fun to use than a sink!
The water there came from a source likely similarly spec'd. Plus you have office buddies around the cooler with their share of contaminants in the form of conversation 😳
"Throwing your weight behind "Russia bad!" messaging in such an environment is an irresponsible use of your voice, especially when you could be using your voice to call for de-escalation, diplomacy and detente and help people understand that they are being deceived."
Amen! If more of us would speak out and wake up those who have fallen into the sleep-inducing propaganda of the Western war machine, then all wars would stop because we'd realized that we've all been used by like pawns by the military industrial complex in order to fill their pockets with blood-soaked profits.
De-escalation, diplomacy, and detente will prevent further deceptions! Power to the people!