There’s been a strong uptick in strikes on Crimea, as Ukraine shifts focus once again on providing some tangible media victory to crown Zelensky’s big North American tour.
It would be like in the sagas of yore, as if the Ukraine would be led by Achilles after he slew Agamemnon/Zelensky the power-hungry meddler in single combat, and took his position as supreme general of the defending forces.
Like a Norman king, he is the most valiant and proud the nation can offer, and will lead and inspire his men to achieve great feats and they will follow him to the oblivion.
It's sad how I used to be a huge fan of Klitschko during those days and cheered him on against Lennox Lewis. But ever since his Maidan performances of 2014 he's made me sick. https://i.imgur.com/NIoiDE7.jpg
Klitschko is a utterly corrupt foreign agent with known foreign passport(s) (EU/Germany), who isn't even Ukrainian (proudly displaying his jewish heritage celebrating with Haredim in Kiev) . Not really seen as a 'savior' by anybody, another corrupt thug from 'tusovka'
Let's see how VK fares in the face of artillery strikes. Tyson in his prime would level 'im. As would many boxers of "both" colors. Talk to me about Fedor Emelianenko.
so what they were cunning went with the system and that if anything has enhanced their careers. You can say they were dishonest but not stupid. Klitschko showed excellence both in theory (phd) and practice (heavyweight career) in his elected field which would be sports. I mean it's hard to malign a man like that, I wonder why do you even try
Well Simplicius here in some previous post notified us readers that the US and the West are going to ramp up artillery shell production to 65,000 per month at some point in early 2024.
Russia will still be able to fire more, but if Ukraine now pulls back and defends until the Western military industrial complex starts acquiring steam, then I am afraid Russia won't be able to break through in Kharkhov or Donetsk if they don't quickly turn offensive this year.
'We' might be able to ramp up to that sort of number, but lots of 'we' have no desire to pay for any of this, and the number grows. Especially with the economic situation in the West, which will be even worse in 2024.
In the meantime, attrition will continue to whittle down the number of tubes capable of actually firing those shells, and nobody's really building any here.
Russia is also ramping up production of shells, plus drones, MLRS, cruise missiles, tanks and aircraft. Personally I think they've already done the math on Ukraine and are thinking well past that now.
Prolonging the war will not change the outcome, only the price.
I'm thinking the same thing Frantic. It would behoove the AFR to storm deeply towards the Dnipro before the AFU can dig in anywhere and recover. Combine that with taking out refineries, depots, power grid and transport before any consolidation can occur. But I'm not a military guy. Easier said than done.
I think battles will be fought for and inside Kupiansk and Krasny Liman this winter but that's about it, no big arrow offensive to the Dniepr as it's not feasible to break through defenses in Donetsk oblast
tsk vitali was born in 1971 and got his phd in 2000 so saying Ukraine educational system is/was bad is akin to saying Soviet educational system was bad. In fact even though many academics would have been enticed by higher wages in the West, the learning structure remained in place and that's what counts. The same could be said for Russia, and Russia wouldn't be where it is today if it had a totally dysfunctional educational system back then.
So again vitali klitchko, heavyweight champion of the world and really the top guy for more than a decade (which is a monstrous achievement in itself that separates one from the common humans given how tough and competitive the sport is), phd, mayor of the capital of his country for years, is a mediocrity, is that what you are saying? Just check that fight with Lennox Lewis, Klitschko got horribly cut and looked like a squashed tomato yet he was winning the fight!
LOL, and who exactly is going to fight? Does Ukraine have even one Ukrainian soldier left?
What am I missing here? The news states 100's of thousand Ukrainians dead, they are deporting ukes from Poland and other border states back to Uke to fight, they are dragging people out of hospitals to fight, what sort of BS is this? Ukraine is finished.
Russia started advancing towards Kupiansk about 3 months ago, they are yet to reach it.
The completion of a build up for a powerful offensive is far away in time, at the earliest next summer as Simplicius repeatedly stated in previous articles.
If Ukraine resists until mid 2024 then the Western military industrial complex will have picked up production enough to allow them to entrench and keep an effective defensive posture.
So unless something happens this winter we are heading to a stalemate
If the Su-24s are firing from over the Black Sea, immediately the question comes up where the hell the MiG-31s with the R-37Ms are?
The moment the Su-24s take off, the MiG-31s are supposed to go up, observe the whole landscape from way above, and shoot them down with the long-range AAMs. While they themselves are way out of range of any SAM Ukraine has.
But that is not happening for some mysterious reason...
You're right that's how theoretically it should be done, particularly with the 31's famous Zaslon look-down radar. However, according to this at least: https://i.imgur.com/wySGRU7.jpg
No 31s are stationed in Crimea. I know one crashed last year in Belbek, Crimea. But I'm not sure if it was just visiting or they're stationed there, and if so maybe that changed. Either way for some reason they may not be there which means the Su-24s can get off their missiles much faster than a Mig-31 can find and target them.
Of course I don't know for a fact they're not stationed in Crimea--maybe they are. If they are, then I honestly don't know why they wouldn't be scrambled in such a way. If they aren't then that explains it. Why they wouldn't be stationed there is also a mystery--the only guess I can make is that due to their low numbers and high strategic importance, Crimea may be a tad too close for comfort for Russia to station them as they can be sabotaged or hit by local drones there. Su-34s etc are similar in number but the difference is they are still being actively produced, whereas Mig-31s aren't to my knowledge which means every loss of those is painful
MiG-31s are critically important for an eventual strategic strike on Europe as the main Kinzhal carrier right now, so they have to be carefully preserved.
Russia is actually desperately short on hypersonic ALCM launch platforms. It's one thing to have the missiles, but another altogether to be able to launch a strategically devastating salvo.
Not short at all. Not only can Tu-22Ms carry Kinzhals but just last month Russia has already announced that Su-34s have now successfully carried out Kinzhal strikes.
On top of that, given the fact that Russia is literally the only country on earth currently fielding fully deployed hypersonic missiles of all types including ALCM, it's pretty embarrassing for someone to say Russia is "desperately short" on them.
No, that was a misunderstanding - FighterBomber explained it. The Su-34s launched FAB-1500 UMPKs, not Kinzhals, then the media got it mixed up.
The Kinzhal carriers are:
1) MiG-31K, of which there are a few dozen, and which each carry one
2) Tu-22M3, of which there are <60, which each carry three.
Now apply the usual readiness factors of 50-70% and we arrive at a total salvo of at most 150 Kinzhals.
Sure, presumably there will be ground launched Zircons added too at some point, but for a fast disabling strike, which may be necessary very, very soon, that is not enough. It's just too many targets around Europe, and these missiles reportedly can only carry <50-Kt warheads.
That might not even be enough to take out NATO's airfields, nuclear weapon bases and missile launch sites, let alone everything else that needs to be disabled.
>it's pretty embarrassing for someone to say Russia is "desperately short" on them.
It's not me saying it, Russian military experts and even the generals in charge have said it many times. They need a lot more ALCM launch capacity than they have now.
That's why they are expanding the Tu-160 fleet and looking for lighter hypersonic missiles for the Su-57s.
The problem is this isn't the USSR that could crank these out in huge numbers on a very short notice, it's the shell of the former glory that is modern Russia
P.S. A rarely discussed reason for the US forcing Russia to start the war the way it did may well be that they had to destroy Russia before the Russian strategic build up was completed. After that it would have been too late.
And they may well achieve that goal the way things are going.
Right now Russia is clearly not ready yet - the super-duper weapons exist, but are not deployed in the needed numbers.
There is no need in multiple tactical nuclear weapon strikes on Europe. And in case it goes into full war, no tactical nukes will be used. It will be a full blown nuclear exchange and end to our civilization.
According to Lavrov, the US and Russial ALREADY are engaged in a STATE OF WAR.
As Lavrov recently stated at the UN:
The US is “effectively engaged in hostilities with us, using the Ukrainians as fodder.”
"You can call this whatever you want to call this, but they are directly at war with us,” he said. “We call this a hybrid war. But that doesn’t change the reality."
it's the shell of the former glory that is modern Russia
AHAHAHAHAHHAHA
total BS
1st) why do you need kinzhals in all out war there will be ICBMs. land based and subs/ 40-50 salvo of kinzhal we have. do you need more? why do you need it? for who? for all out nato war? it will be entire strategic forces then and not kinzhals. are you aware that kinzhals dont hit USA and you need icbms?)
2) you dont need thousands of jets launch thousands of kinzhals.
3) russian military experts.. they are not "russian" military experts. they consume trash from ukie sources
4) shell of former glory is 100% dumb statement. russia now is MORE capable than ussr in 1980s for example.
Do you have any idea what the industrial capacity of the USSR was, how many nukes (and everything else) it produced, etc.?
Also, all of these super weapons are just resurrected 1970s and 1980s Soviet developments.
It is great that they were resurrected, but whether the ability to initiate such projects rather than just finish them has been recovered is still an open question.
Not just Mig-31's; the Russians have Su-27's, Su-35's, Su-57's, Mig-29's, and all sorts of CAP assets which could be covering the black sea. It may be an economy issue, that they simply don't see the need to expend so much effort/money/resources (planes are expensive to fly) and simply prefer to tank the hits and rely on ground based AA
A 24/7 CAP requires 24/7 AWACS coverage of the area of interest, in this case the Black Sea. Russia simply cannot do that with the limited AWACS assets it has. CAP without AWACS leaves big gaps.
This is likely part of why NATO air based surveillance increases just prior to Su-24 launch, they are verifying gaps in radar coverage and that no random CAP flights are in range to take down the aircraft in flight.
The Russ deficiency in AWACs has been previously denied and targeted and hit by the Ukies.I have known this ever since a bunch of VIPs escaped Mariupol in helicopters undetected because they are "flying17 feet over the water." Then you watch videos Ukie helicopters fly under the electrical wires and S-34s going 17 feet over tree tops and you understand the problem. That is how Z gets into and out of the front lines. The Russian fleet is supposed to be out there in the Black Sea watching for these things, but apparently they are vulnerable to speedboat drones zipping 0 feet above the water. The solution will be (or is) phased array radar (which should work well reflecting off water) or multiple drone radar emitters coordinated to multiple receivers. Or I wonder if you could do it by hijacking Musk's system. It is a war of trenches, team assaults, drones, AWACs, and electronic warfare. Soon, it will be the daisy cutters taking out entire treelines, or, or our beloved cluster bombs. It will get ugly between now and the election. I understand there are a few new viruses around. I'd rather take out the Nazi government, the ones getting the US money, rather that the grunt, but that is just an observation intended to save lives.
Second issue - we all know why there are no A-50s (oligarchs spent the money on megayachts instead), but at least Russia could have invested into cheaper surveillance drones analogous to the US Global Hawks. Or bought them from China, which has done that.
That hasn't been/isn't being done for some reason either.
Is it your full time job as a propaganda operative to comment on Simplicius' articles the moment they are published? Or is it just happening for some mysterious reason...
The A-50/oligarch connection is incorrect. In fact, Russia has a standard number of AWACS that's commensurate with its size. I've established before how the U.S. itself, being a huge megapower much larger than Russia, has only ~30 E-3 AWACs. Considering that U.S. is much more than double the population of Russia, that means Russia's 15-20 AWACs to U.S.'s 30 is fairly comparable and proportionate.
By the way, AWACS are highly expensive and rare, which is why only the top couple superpower countries even have them to begin with. China too has a similar number to Russia and they are far older, inferior systems.
With that said, of course I still wish Russia would have focused more on manufacturing them, but we have to keep things in perspective, Russia still has roughly the 2nd most in the world after the U.S.
It has to scale with respect to geographic size and the threat vectors, and Russia is much bigger and surrounded by NATO.
The CONUS currently is actually largely defenseless in terms of AD coverage, but it is not surrounded by missile launch platforms ready to fire.
So Russia actually needs 2-3x as many AWACS planes as NATO has, but instead it has 4-5x fewer.
The current situation with the Storm Shadows is in fact extremely concerning with respect to the capability to repel a hypothetical mass low-flying CM launch. The US converted four Ohio class SSBNs to SSGNs with 154 cruise missiles each, plus it has a whole bunch of ships with lots of VLS cells each too, etc. Imagine that gets fired from the Arctic and the Baltic Sea as terrain hugging missiles with nuclear warheads each and the performance of Russian AD is the same as it is in Sevastopol (which is great in comparison to the competitors, but ultimately far short of sufficient to disable the threat). You would need dozens of AWACS planes to even track it all, and Russia doesn't have those. Not looking good at all.
To properly think about the size of western $$ Oligarchy's: USA, Canada, Australia, Britain, New Zealand & other territories & 900 worldwide vulnerable bases, shows western Oligarchy empire as much more divided, stretched & unprotected as a territory with its AWACS & other military resources. Comparatively Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Belarus etc., are continuous, attached, overlapping & integrated in distances & size for their existing defence systems. In any case the vulnerability of both are similar. The worst part is that longstanding imperial senile war-mongers like Biden, Trudeau & Sunak are such easily indoctrinated, proud war-mongers. As such these $$ Oligarch puppets are incapable of engaging in open both-sided, equal-time, recorded & published dialogue collaboration with either their own citizens or perceived enemies to raise issues positive for agreement or for Conflict Resolution. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/d-participatory-structure/1-both-sides-now-equal-time-recorded-dialogues
It is preferrable to have more AWACS planes, but it depends on the economy and not country size. There are many more other matters that need attention. You can't use considerable part of your military spending on the AWACS alone.
Agreed, one weak spot for the Russian Air Force considering the landmass it has to cover. Especially since a lot of the combat airframes of the older models of interceptors must be coming to their end-of-life. Oh how I miss the Mig-25.
"The US converted four Ohio class SSBNs to SSGNs with 154 cruise missiles each, plus it has a whole bunch of ships with lots of VLS cells each too, etc."
Russia would know before such nuclear rockets even load into ships. Not mention that entire US fleet will reach launch regions.
Before that Russia will ask wtf where are you going murica, unload rockets and sit down at base. if not - Sarmat icbms gonna kiss USA territory
First strike is impossible. Opposite side will know it in advance.
Phased array would work as would hive technology connecting multiple airborne transmitter drones and multiple receivers (hopefully being developed). Phased array should work well over water.
US has 30 AWAC's to cover their entire global hegemony plus N. America defence, due to US/Russian borders placing them as next door neighbours in Alaska, about an arty shell apart in the bottleneck straits. Russia is focused soley on defending their country, as expansive as it is, & helping defend Syria. The disparity is not 2:1 in US favour in Ukraine theatre. Rus AWAC's are targets, US aren't, yet. My guess, Russia is accepting some losses, holding back their AWAC for if/when the shit hits the fan directly with NUTO. Where Russia lags, of course, is in surveillance satellites. Muskrat's Starlink has lost 212 satellites just since June 23. First launched in '19, with expected 5 year service life, the failure rate- cause unknown- may cause tempory blind spots that might be taken advantage of by Russia for launching attacks, depending on if some of the "failures" are consecutive. Certain weapons nobody discloses, yet effects are noticed. Weather manipulation in warfare is definitely one where it contradicts the agenda of global warming & is left undisclosed, since they're using it on their own citizens. That's my 2 cents on the subject.
My understanding is that Iran has just unveiled a new "GlobalHawk" type long-flying surveillance drone, so perhaps it won't be long before Russia acquires them as well. Sorry, but I'm not enough of a war nerd to remember the Iranian name for this drone, but should be easy enough to find with an internet search. Looked pretty impressive to me, though.
I live in SF killafornia and I can tell you it ain't all that. The lack of a societal safety net makes scAmerica a sick country.
Sad to hear nUkrania is recruiting children rather than capitulating, and sadder that a year and a half ago this war could have already been settled, until Boris the clown went to see the paid actor elenskies and gave him BorisVirus23.
They took me out of Russia, but they can't take the Russian outta me
"I had forgotten to post this a while back. Ukrainian journalist Roman Revedzhuk who had previously run for office and was involved in Ukrainian politics for a long time revealed that he had received an insider report from the SBU that Ukraine had more than 310,000 KIA as of July"
In my comment on August 14, I wrote: "The minimum estimate of Ukrainian losses is ~330,000 "tarasiks" (the contemptuous name of the ukrainian nazis. From the common name Taras). Killed."
How bizarrely the deck is shuffled... Even filthy Ukrainian propagandists, through their teeth, are reluctantly forced to admit the minimum estimates of our Ministry of Defense.
Naturally, the number of Ukrainian corpses has long exceeded these figures, moreover, the Ukrainian authorities themselves will not be able to give the exact number of "soldiers" destroyed - they simply do not care and statistics are not actually kept.
The sense of Russians’ belief in victory is palpable. Couple that with determination, then consider the rapid advancement in military technology and real commitment to excellence. NATO / Ukraine can bother RF from time with flea bites, but as this war progresses, the outcome of a resounding Russian victory is inevitable. Maybe time to consider investments in Russian markets, because after this war is complete, and BRICs move to prominence, Russia will likely experience a renaissance and assume world leadership alongside China.
Still no confirmation if they indeed wiped out Black Sea command structure incl CIC.
UKR scored a big media hit yesterday, it was all over MSM. You would have thought that Russkies would either have only used the basement/shelter levels of this building or put a guided missile destroyer offshore to guard against sea-skimmers.
It's the effect it has. Splashed over all networks etc. RT showing the commander on a zoom chat with Shoigu does nothing to quieten the "chatter" that Ukr gave the Russians a bloody nose.
Get him on RT with todays newspaper shown and telling the World "I'm still here bitches"
Twitter war impact only makes a difference to Twitter warriors.
What's going on in Ukraine is a real war - and it will be won via real war means.
There's a reason why the West is getting ever more pessimistic about Ukraine - it is because all the MSM lying and Western spin doctoring in the world, even with victorious Twitter War headlines, don't change the facts on the ground.
You seem to be stuck on the idea that what you, or I, or the western public thinks matters in any way. It doesn't. Not even for the tiniest fraction. Only the west lives in this illusion that their perception of reality means something. Or that a 'battle of perceptions' needs to be fought.
So the Russians, both officials and public, completely ignore it. And why shouldn't they? Why should they spend time and effort on something that is entirely meaningless and only exists in the heads of the gullible and those in the west in need of some kind of assurance regarding their preferred perception? It's not their responsibility to cater to our psychological needs.
And it is blatantly obvious that the Ukraine is lying about having inflicted those casualties. I'm surprised I even have to point it out to people here. If there were indeed 34, or more, Russians killed, there would also be many more injured. There would have been a parade of ambulances going back and forth to the place, not to mention the frantic search for survivors (and bodies). It would be impossible to hide and it would all over the western media. Instead, there's been a complete absence. Conclusion: Ukraine lying, Russia telling the truth. What a surprise.
To be honest, it's rather disappointing that people keep falling for this. That they only seem to be able to focus on what's shoved in their face and never take a moment to stop and think about the things they also should be seeing (but aren't) if what they are being told is true.
Let me be clear, Propaganda kept various regimes fighting until the bitter end. Goebbels was the master at this as have been so many others since. Look at how Reagan's SDI scared the USSR shitless and was a prime mover to various peace accords.
The West does not care about "till the last Ukrainian"
I served in the army in the '80's in Germany and we also went through various alerts during that time which scared the shit out of me (Because I knew what was facing us across the Fulda gap and the threat of NBC warfare)
With age I don't fall for anything anymore BUT too many modern Westerners do. Having to educate friends who I thought had brains and could read history since 1991 has shocked me.
Anyways, I'm going back to clean my guns :-) Stay safe.
Yeah sorry, which started as a reply to your comment turned into a more general rant which wasn't meant personally.
Nevertheless, our opinions here in the west, and by 'our' I mean the general population don't matter at all, certainly not to the Russians, and probably not at all. The few outliers that remain, like many of those following Simplicius, aren't going to make a meaningful impact on the general population, and the rest, the 'sheeple', will believe whatever they are spoon-fed. 'We were always at war with Oceania'.
My point is that we have far surpassed the comparatively basic and simple propagandistic machinations of Goebbels and his ilk. Rather than having to convince the population of something specific and having to work at that, populations now are primed to uncritically consume whatever narrative is fed to them. And the bulk does just that. They may bicker amongst themselves about some of the details, but that may even be a feature, rather than a bug, to create the illusion of (meaningful) differences of opinions.
Which brings us back to why the Russians should care, or make any effort to feed us a different narrative. Most of us have been trained to be at least fearful of the Russians, if not outright hate them. Any narrative coming out of Russia needs to be accompanied by a truckload of additional evidence proving that they're not lying, or it will be dismissed out of hand, as we've also been trained to believe that Russia always lies, whereas whatever the Ukraine says, or the western MSM, is accepted at face value, even if it flies in the face of obvious facts and evidence, logic, and basic common knowledge.
But don't forget that the majority of people in the West aren't playing close enough attention to this to understand what is actually going on. For this majority of people, the Twitter War can easily convey the wrong impression.
Unfortunately, while the "Schrodinger's cat" situation can last for some time, it does have to resolve into reality at some point and we are rapidly approaching that.
What is happening in Crimea is 1) literally what vicky nuland said would happen earlier this year (that crimea was a legit target and that the US would help attack 2) part of a "denial" strategy to make crimea "unviable" for the Russians. Presumably to make life miserable for the residents or something
Echoes of the blitz in ww2, when the Germans gave up on actually destroying Britain's air force and instead decided to hit London, and eventually with the first cruise missiles in history too
I'm going to keep saying it, I believe taking Odesa will end the war sooner than later as NATO will have lost the dream to control the Black Sea, and they will bow out.
This fight won't end when Ukraine receives a knockout blow, because that would result in a horrible post-war situation. It will end when Ukraine stops getting up from the canvas. Ukraine has to make a conscious choice to submit...
I appreciate Simplicius' assessment how never before in human history has such advanced military design on multiple platforms & levels including the most advanced Artificial Intelligence as the missile, aircraft, defence & whole national military guidance core, ever been deployed by both sides in a conflict. This is a Military-Industrial Complex & computer conflict of the most frightening human & resource devastation. This war is western $$ Oligarchy orchestrated ALLIES grudge revenge 78 year later, against Ukraine's WW2 participation in the 12 nation AXIS, putting Russia in the role of destroying Ukraine as the Allied enemy.
For Brazil, Russia, India, China, South-Africa, Iran, Saudi-Arabia & aligned nations BRICS to more effectively engage the brutal intellectual cowardice of western Oligarchy is to culturally engage whole populations & by this means the $$ 'S'elected captured government representatives with Both-sides-now, Equal-time, Recorded & Published Dialogue. Formal responsibility to dialogue was a part of all humanity's worldwide 'indigenous' (Latin 'self-generating') COUNCIL PROCESS, once a dialectic-right to raise issues positive for agreement or for Conflict Resolution. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/d-participatory-structure/1-both-sides-now-equal-time-recorded-dialogues
While Russia is duly & justifiably protecting the many 10s of millions of Russian speaking Ukrainians from slaughter with its SVO, it must recognize that the most productive investment going forward is direct engagement of human 'mind' ('caring'). i.e. Population submissive economic collusion with Oligarchy must be partially undone through mass cultural 'debate' (French 'de' = 'undo' + 'bate' = 'the-fight').
Mohandas Gandhi stated, "Non-violence springs from love, cowardice from hate. Non-violence always suffers, cowardice would always inflict suffering. Non-violence & cowardice go ill together. I can imagine a fully armed man to be at heart a COWARD." Gandhi is speaking here to the intelligent mind of the soldier as an active contributor to his or her community, society & ultimately to the international agent in conversation of war & peace. That portion of uncaptured Social Media today can afford to contribute to such liberation, if converted from Mono to Dialogue.
Leland Lehrman, Thank you for your open letter & quoting of such as Darya Dugina, Rudolf Steiner, Alexander Bovdunov & others. Thanks for introducing your work & research.
From 1969-80 I had the privilege of living & working among 45,000 Russian Doukhobor (closely aligned with Lev Tolstoy), 3000 German Mennonite, 1000 English Quaker & American pacifist communities in the West Kootenays of British Columbia. George Podmorov, a friend who had come over on the Doukhobor ship, as a 5 year old in 1899, reflected how he felt the pacifist communities, had lost the national & urban missions of their formation in Russian, German, English & American cities. Each settler group in concert with Oligarch armed & financed colonialism, facilitated by Army clearance brigades, had contributed to the annihilation of 1st Nation 'indigenous' (Latin 'self-generating') peoples worldwide & even shunned 1st Nation survivor, now refugees, when they returned to their ancient now colonial settler occupied home. Knowing I am from Montreal, George encouraged me to re-engage back with my roots.
While these so-called 'peace' communities were taking some responsibility for their lifestyle contributions with such phrases as "Toil & a peaceful life", many internal factors caused their original self-sufficiency goals & wonderful ecological enterprises to fail. These Anabaptists were 100 times better than the fake 'pacifists' of today who only protest, lobby & complain about government actions, while doing next to nothing in their own lives, production & consumption patterns individually or collectively. However they could & still can learn from 1st Nations & their own indigenous heritage worldwide for implementing balanced RELATIONAL 'ECONOMY' (Greek 'oikos' = 'home' + 'namein' = 'care-&-nurture'). Russia's Petr Kropotkin in his 1915 book Mutual-Aid, a Factor of Evolution is excellent. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/c-relational-economy
False 'co-operatives' (L 'co' = 'together' + 'operatives' = 'multi-stakeholders') with the false One-member/One-vote did & do not empower individuals nor social enterprises in the cycle of contribution, experience, expertise & decision-making-acumen. Hence colonial co-ops & fake non-profits, haven't been able to unite stakeholders in share investment, ownership, Board representation & experience-based decision-making. These human mistakes were typical of the Rochdale co-ops in England, Kibbutz of Israel & ongoing false Co-ops today worldwide.
Religious & Pacifist groups were about 50% of the 10s of millions of European economic-ecological settler-refugees from failed European Oligarch rule. Unfortunately most settlers, instead of immigrating to 1st Nations & honoring ancient 'indigenous' laws & customs, only imposed the same dysfunction left & right. I'm involved for 60 of my 71 years of age now in solidarity living & working with 1st Nations & indigenous peoples worldwide. Although I worked with Co-ops for some 40 years, I've also been privileged to learn & implement traditional indigenous Multistakeholder Participatory investment, ownership & Board-Representation in industry & commerce as ECONOMIC-DEMOCRACY. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/c-relational-economy/8-economic-democracy
Let me know what you think of the rest of my work at
http://mothersarms.substack.com and online you will find the balance... some of which needs to be rewritten given new understandings developed over the years.
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A REBEL AND A REVOLUTIONARY?
Maneesha, there is not only a quantitative difference between a rebel and a revolutionary, there is also a qualitative difference.
The revolutionary is part of the political world. His approach is through politics. His understanding is that changing the social structure is enough to change the man.
The rebel is a spiritual phenomenon. His approach is absolutely individual. His vision is that if we want to change the society, we have to change the individual. Society in itself does not exist; it is only a word, like ‘crowd’, but if you go to find it, you will not find it anywhere. Wherever you will encounter someone, you will encounter an individual. Society is only a collective name, just a name, not a reality, with no substance. The individual has a soul,has a possibility of evolution, of change, of transformation. Hence the difference is tremendous.
The rebel is the very essence of religion. He brings into the world a change of consciousness and if the consciousness changes, then the structure of the society is bound to follow it. But vice versa is not right and it has been proved by all the revolutions, because they have all failed.
No revolution has yet succeeded in changing man; but it seems man is not aware of the fact. He still goes on thinking in terms of revolution, of changing society, of changing the government, of changing the bureaucracy, of changing laws, political systems. Feudalism, capitalism, communism, socialism, fascism they are all in their own way revolutionary. They all have failed, and failed utterly, because man has remained the same.
A Gautam Buddha, a Zarathustra, a Jesus – these people are rebels. Their trust is in the individual. They have not succeeded either, but their failure is totally different than the failure of the revolutionary. Revolutionaries have tried their methodology in many countries, in many ways, and have failed. But a Gautam Buddha has not succeeded because he has not been tried. A Jesus has not succeeded because Jews crucified him and Christians buried him. He has not been tried he has not been given a chance. The rebel is still an unexperimented dimension.
My sannyasins have to be rebels not revolutionaries. The revolutionary belongs to a very mundane sphere. The rebel and his rebelliousness are sacred. The revolutionary cannot stand alone, he needs a crowd, a political party, a government. He needs power, and power corrupts – and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
All the revolutionaries who have succeeded in capturing power have been corrupted by the power. They could not change the power and its institutions; the power changed them and their minds and corrupted them. Only names became different, but the society continued to remain the same. Man’s consciousness has not grown for centuries. Only once in awhile a man blossoms, but in millions of people the blossoming of one man is not a rule, it is the exception. And because he is alone, the crowd cannot tolerate him. He becomes a kind of humiliation; his very presence becomes insulting, because he opens your eyes,makes you aware of your potential and your future. And it hurts your ego that you have done nothing to grow, to be more conscious, to be more loving, to be more ecstatic, to be more creative, to be more silent – to make a beautiful world around you.
You have not contributed to the world, your existence has not been a blessing here but a curse. You introduce your anger, your violence, your jealousy, your competitiveness, your lust for power. You make the world a war field; you are blood thirsty and you make others blood thirsty. You deprive humanity of its humanness. You help man to fall below humanity, even sometimes below animals. Hence a Gautam Buddha or a Kabir or a Chuang Tzu hurts you because he has blossomed, and you are just standing there. Springs come and go, nothing blossoms in you; no birds come and make their nest on you, and sing their songs around you. It is better to crucify a Jesus and poison a Socrates – just to remove them – so that you need not feel in any way spiritually inferior. The world has known only very few rebels.
But now is the time: if humanity proves incapable of producing a large number of rebels – a rebellious spirit – then our days on the earth are numbered. Then this century may become our graveyard. We are coming very close to that point.
We have to change our consciousness, create more meditative energy in the world, create more lovingness. We have to destroy the old man and his ugliness, his rotten ideologies, his stupid discriminations, idiotic superstitions, and create a new man, with fresh eyes, with new values; a discontinuity with the past – that’s the meaning of rebelliousness.
These three words will help you to understand...
Reform
means a modification. The old remains, you give it a new form, a new shape – a kind of renovation of an old building. Its original structure remains; you whitewash it, you clean it, you make a few windows, a few new doors.
Revolution
goes deeper than reform. The old remains, but more changes are introduced even in its basic structure – not only changing its color and opening a few windows and doors, but perhaps making new stories, taking it higher into the sky. But the old is not destroyed, it remains hidden behind the new; in fact, it remains the very foundation of the new. Revolution is a continuity with the old.
Rebellion
is a discontinuity. It is not reform, it is not revolution; it is simply disconnecting yourself from all that is old. The old religions, the old political ideologies, the old man – all that is old, you disconnect yourself from it. You start life afresh, from scratch. And unless we prepare humanity to begin life again – a resurrection, a death of the old and a birth of the new...
It is very significant to remember that the day Gautam Buddha was born, his mother died; as he was coming out of the womb, his mother was going out of existence. Perhaps this was historical, because he was brought up by his mother’s sister – he never saw his mother alive. And now it has become a traditional idea in Buddhism that whenever a Buddha is born, his mother dies immediately, his mother cannot survive. I take it as a symbolic and very significant indication. It means the birth of a rebel is the death of the old.
The revolutionary tries to change the old; the rebel simply comes out of the old, just as the snake slips out of the old skin, and never looks back. Unless we create such rebellious people around the earth, man has no future. The old man has brought man to his ultimate death. It is the old mind, the old ideologies, the old religions – they have all combined together to bring about this situation of global suicide. Only a new man can save humanity and this planet, and the beautiful life of this planet.
I teach rebellion, not revolution. To me, rebelliousness is the essential quality of a religious man. It is spirituality in its absolute purity.
The days of revolution are over. The French revolution failed, the Russian revolution failed, the Chinese revolution failed. In this country we have seen the Gandhian revolution fail, and it failed in front of Gandhi’s own eyes. Gandhi was teaching nonviolence his whole life, and in front of his own eyes the country was divided; millions of people were killed, burned alive; millions of women were raped. And Gandhi himself was shot dead. That is a strange end of a nonviolent saint.
And he himself forgot all his teachings. Before his revolution was secured, Gandhi was asked by an American thinker, Louis Fischer,
”What are you going to do with the arms, armies, and all the different weapons, when India becomes an independent country?”
Gandhi said,
”I’m going to throw all the arms into the ocean, and send all the armies to work in the fields and in the gardens.”
And Louis Fischer asked,
”But have you forgotten?Somebody can invade your country.”
Gandhi said, ”We will welcome him. If somebody invades us, we will accept him as a guest and tell him, ‘You can also live here, just the way we are living. There is no need to fight.’”
But he completely forgot all his philosophy – that’s how revolutions fail. It is very beautiful to talk about these things, but when power comes into your hands...
First, Mahatma Gandhi did not accept any post in the government. It was out of fear, because how was he going to answer the whole world? What about throwing the arms into the ocean? What about sending the armies to work in the fields? He escaped from the responsibility for which he had been fighting his whole life, seeing that it was going to create tremendous trouble for him; he would have to contradict his own philosophy. But the government was made up of his own disciples,chosen by him. He did not ask them to dissolve the armies, on the contrary. When Pakistan attacked India, he did not say to the Indian government, ”Now go to the borders and welcome the invaders as guests.” Instead, he blessed the first three airplanes that were going to bomb Pakistan. The three airplanes flew over the villa where he was staying in New Delhi, and he came out into the garden to bless them. And with his blessings they went ahead to destroy our own people, who just a few days before were our brothers and our sisters. Unashamedly, without ever seeing the contradiction...
The Russian revolution failed in front of the very eyes of Lenin. He was preaching according to Karl Marx, that
”When the revolution comes, we will dissolve marriage, because marriage is part of private property; as private property goes out, marriage will also go out. People can be lovers, can live together; children will be taken care of by the society.”
But as the revolution succeeded, he saw the enormousness of the problem: to take care of so many children... who is going to take care of those children? And to dissolve marriage... for the first time he saw that your society depends on the family. The family is a basic unit – without the family, your society will be dissolved. And it will be dangerous – dangerous to creating a dictatorship of the proletariat, because people will become more independent if they don't have the responsibilities of the family.
You can see the logic. If people have the responsibilities of a wife, of an old father, an old mother, of children, they are so burdened they cannot be rebellious.They cannot go against the government, they have too many responsibilities. But if people have no responsibilities, if the old people are taken care of by the government – as they had been promising before the revolution – if children are taken care of by the government, and people can live together for as long as they love each other, they don’t need permission for marriage, and they don’t need any divorce; it is their private personal affair and the government has no business to interfere....
But when it came about that the power was in the hands of the Communist Party, and Lenin was the leader, everything changed. Once power comes into their hands, people start thinking differently. Now the thinking was that to make people so independent of responsibilities is dangerous – they will become too individualistic. So let them be burdened with a family. They will remain enslaved just because of an old mother, an old father, a sick wife, or children and their education. Then they don’t have the time or the courage to go against the government in any matter. The family is one of the greatest traps that society has used for millennia to keep man a slave. Lenin forgot all about dissolving families.
It is very strange how revolutions have failed. They have failed at the hands of the revolutionaries themselves, because once the power comes into their hands, they start thinking in different ways. Then they become too attached to the power. Then their whole effort is how to keep the power forever in their hands, and how to keep the people enslaved.
The future needs no other revolutions. The future needs a new experiment which has not been tried yet. Although for thousands of years there have been rebels, they remained alone – individuals. Perhaps the time was not ripe for them. But now the time is not only ripe... if you don’t hurry, the time has come to an end.
By the end of this century, either man will disappear, or a new man with a new vision will appear on the earth. He will be a rebel.
Angostura, RE Revolution versus Rebel (rebellion?) The examples you give are REACTIONS based during the past 7000 years of fake 'money' (Greek 'mnemosis' = 'memory') Oligarch commanded & controlled 'exogenous' (L. 'other-generated') colonial empire. The books of justifying colonial empire invasion & brutality are the Torah or Old Testament based in Noahide Laws or the Negative 10 Commandment say 'Thou-shalt-not' do this or that essentially starting with indigenous Babylon's overthrow by Oligarchy ruling with fake 'money' & controlling every failed empire since.
Let's start instead
EXACTLY AS WE ARE where we already live & work in order to enable human-kind, individuals, family, extended-family, communities to live, work & thrive together PROACTIVELY & POSITIVELY at all levels, it is time to discuss about all humanity's ancient worldwide 'indigenous' (Latin 'self-generating') Cultural-Fractal ('Fraction, multiplier, building-block, where-the-part-contains-the-whole') self-organization, accounting, memory, compensation, empowerment & decision-making together. Previous to this Oligarch period of extreme violence, all humanity worked culturally.
Its important to start & continue with humans exactly as we are. Loving, intimate, intergenerational, female-male, interdisciplinary, critical-mass, economies-of-scale in the ~100 person Multihome. Across Turtle-Island / N. America for example were ~110 nations organized into ~23 Confederacies of 5-7 nations. This fractal grouping at every individual, family, friends, extended-family, ~100 (50-150) person Multihome-Dwelling-Complex, neighbourhood, City, Region, Nation, Confederacies, Continental & Hemispheric Councils functioned with all levels being strong & positive. This loving governance is known by all humanity's worldwide indigenous ancestors & 1st Nation peoples among many names as: Kaianere'kowa (Haudenosaunee, 'People of the extended-rafters' aka 'Welcome'), Inlakesh (Maya 'I am another-you, You are another me'), Maloka (Amazon, Aymara, Jamamadi Apurina for 'Longhouse'), System-of-100s in indigenous Celtic & Slavic Europe, Zadruga ('Economy-of-friends' in Serbia-Croatia, Swadeshi in India, Tao in China with Bei referring to the Chinese character for ancient Cowrie string-shell, , Chaebol (Korea for 'Family-Economy', Keiretsu (Japanese for 'Family-Economy'), Ubuntu (southern Africa Nguni word for 'Kindness' economy) etc.
CULTURAL 'FRACTAL' (Fraction, Multiplier, Building-block, where-the-Part-contains-the-whole') 'ECONOMY' as an indigenous mathematical practice. String-shell integrates: 1) Capital (L. 'cap' = 'head' = 'collective-intelligence'), 2) Currency ('flow' in transactions & life), 3) Condolence (Social Security for all matters) 4) Collegial mentored-apprenticeship 'education' (L. 'educare' = 'to-lead-forth-from-within') Credit, 5) time-math Communication, 6) professional Costume for identification of essential public expertise & more. Indigenous Peoples & 1st Nations here implemented fractal organization, empowering individuals, families, extended-families, ~100 (50-150) person Multihome-Dwelling-Complexes (eg. Longhouse-apartment, Pueblo-townhouse & Kanata-village), towns, cities, regions, nations, confederate, continental & hemispheric councils based on the empowered bottom fractal. Today 70% of humanity live in Multihomes with average 32 dwelling-units = ~100 people. 20% of Multihome-Dwellers are extended families, living intentionally in both privacy & proximity for Social & Economic collaboration. Multihomes are the equivalencies of multi-million dollar earning, spending & infrastructure economies. Multihome-extended-family contribute trillions of $ of the most individually appropriate talents, goods, services, sharing caring/year as Turtle-Island, N-America's largest essential Economic sector, albeit unrecognized by government, education & institutions. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/c-relational-economy/1-extending-our-welcome-participatory-multihome-cohousing
What happened? A couple of years ago I met Ukrainian business people at a trade fair in Johannesburg, South Africa. They came across as pretty decent fellows who wouldn't hurt a fly. Coming from their part of the world, they were comfortable giving information to a black person like myself. Sad to see Ukraine lacking the sense to see where it has been (mis)led to by those who don't have the welfare and interests of its people at heart... Many of us people of the south and others in the West, we pity Ukraine. At the same time we wonder why can't Ukraine see that it is being used.. much to the detriment of its people and possibly the world as a whole if the situation carries on like this...
Dude, keep in mind that we're talking about 20-year-old Russian soldiers uploading these videos. Believe me, I hear young guys around here bumping their insanely loud music all the time from their souped-up BMWs. They're not going to switch to Mozart any time soon :)
There is more fascinating music than there is time to listen to it. To me it's difficult to single out a single piece or a certain composer, however, sometimes while listening to "The Well Tempered Clavier" it get the feeling that everything that came later is already there "in nuce" .
However, the "eternal modernity" gives me the vibe of being a somewhat paradox formula.
The one example of Russian music I'd suggest anybody and everybody to listen to is Rachmaninov's "Vespers" ("Das grosse Abend-und Morgenlob", "Ostervespern"). There are a number of interpretions available that are hotly discussed. You know, which is the ultimate one. For a number of reasons the famous 60ies Soviet recording is still the thing, unless you are faint of heart.
“ However, the "eternal modernity" gives me the vibe of being a somewhat paradox formula.”
Indeed it is, just like Shostakovichs music, the time they were written and formost the context he was writing in.
How to create something so beautifull with “gun to your “had?
The famous oboe melody (one could call it a profanity) in the 10th after this epic, introduction is a great example.
The base string themes of the 5th and 8th always reminded me on eastern sifi-movies. With their optimism. Of to new frontiers to explore not to conquere.
My english is not sufficiant to really express my thoughts i think.
And… yes the soviet recordings of the 60ies (and even earlyer) are very special and what struck me even more by now that many of them also got filmed and there is a incredible material on youtube. Marvinsky conducting Shostakovichs 8th for example (in the late 40ies but in color).
Could go on but have no time anymore.
May oure host forgive this off-topic conversation.
Since English is prevalently used here it seemed to be a matter of politeness to continue with it. Otherwise, with both of us being German, our conversation could have been held in our native language. I tried to keep my replies short for the same reason you mentioned. Thanks for letting me know your insightful opinion.
Russia is clearly asymmetrically responding: a group of euro and zion spooks and some russian oligarchs drowned in Lago Maggiore some months ago and everybody knows it was not an accident (official cover is "a tempest" I do not know if it is a cope or an example of Russian weather weapons).
OMG Simp if they depose Zelensky and install Klitschko as president of Ukraine as you suggest, I would start worrying about Russian chances. Klitschko is a beast of a man carved out of granite, he will instil fighting spirit in the AFU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9WvFVtK9uHg&pp=ygUZa2xpdHNjaGtvIHZzIGxlbm5veCBsZXdpcw%3D%3D
It would be like in the sagas of yore, as if the Ukraine would be led by Achilles after he slew Agamemnon/Zelensky the power-hungry meddler in single combat, and took his position as supreme general of the defending forces.
Like a Norman king, he is the most valiant and proud the nation can offer, and will lead and inspire his men to achieve great feats and they will follow him to the oblivion.
It's sad how I used to be a huge fan of Klitschko during those days and cheered him on against Lennox Lewis. But ever since his Maidan performances of 2014 he's made me sick. https://i.imgur.com/NIoiDE7.jpg
What's that, Klitschko covered in chalk ?? Is that an extinction rebellion protest? It looks like some sort of charade and Klitschko is impersonator!
More likley he got into Zelensky's stash.
Klitschko is a utterly corrupt foreign agent with known foreign passport(s) (EU/Germany), who isn't even Ukrainian (proudly displaying his jewish heritage celebrating with Haredim in Kiev) . Not really seen as a 'savior' by anybody, another corrupt thug from 'tusovka'
Let's see how VK fares in the face of artillery strikes. Tyson in his prime would level 'im. As would many boxers of "both" colors. Talk to me about Fedor Emelianenko.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUECmaLojVE (AI/bullshit narration)
Yah, take another listen to the 2014 recording from Tori Nuland and you'll get a much clearer idea of what the USA thinks of the guy = dumb as fuck.
Klitschko is not stupid! He has got a PhD on top of being a heavyweight contender! He is exceptionally energetic!
so what they were cunning went with the system and that if anything has enhanced their careers. You can say they were dishonest but not stupid. Klitschko showed excellence both in theory (phd) and practice (heavyweight career) in his elected field which would be sports. I mean it's hard to malign a man like that, I wonder why do you even try
Which shows what you know about the Ukrainian educational system.
Klitschko is not stupid! He has got a PhD on top of being a heavyweight contender! He is exceptionally energetic!
you need the men.
Seriously?
This is ludicrous. The AFU has suffered enormous losses and is still fighting.
The issue has never been that Ukrainians won't fight - the issue is that they are losing.
Having a stupid/energetic type like Klitschko would only make the existing bad situation, worse.
Klitschko is not stupid! He has got a PhD on top of being a heavyweight contender! He is exceptionally energetic!
You sound like a fanboi.
Frantic is not stupid!
Yours,
Frantic
Completely agree. Raising fighting spirits at this point will only add to the pile of bodies. Ukraine needs peace and its men to come home alive.
Well Simplicius here in some previous post notified us readers that the US and the West are going to ramp up artillery shell production to 65,000 per month at some point in early 2024.
Russia will still be able to fire more, but if Ukraine now pulls back and defends until the Western military industrial complex starts acquiring steam, then I am afraid Russia won't be able to break through in Kharkhov or Donetsk if they don't quickly turn offensive this year.
'We' might be able to ramp up to that sort of number, but lots of 'we' have no desire to pay for any of this, and the number grows. Especially with the economic situation in the West, which will be even worse in 2024.
In the meantime, attrition will continue to whittle down the number of tubes capable of actually firing those shells, and nobody's really building any here.
Russia is also ramping up production of shells, plus drones, MLRS, cruise missiles, tanks and aircraft. Personally I think they've already done the math on Ukraine and are thinking well past that now.
Prolonging the war will not change the outcome, only the price.
ahaha shut up peasant! you pay for Ukraine and to fatten the military industrial complex
or else
These things are certainly happening against the will of most electorates. But as I said, it will raise the price not change the outcome.
I'm thinking the same thing Frantic. It would behoove the AFR to storm deeply towards the Dnipro before the AFU can dig in anywhere and recover. Combine that with taking out refineries, depots, power grid and transport before any consolidation can occur. But I'm not a military guy. Easier said than done.
AFU is already well dug in Donetsk
I think battles will be fought for and inside Kupiansk and Krasny Liman this winter but that's about it, no big arrow offensive to the Dniepr as it's not feasible to break through defenses in Donetsk oblast
That was a joke, right? I have personally met both Klitchko brothers. Neither are the sharpest knives in the drawer.
Anyway, the West has already invested too much PR in Zelenskii to depose him now.
tsk vitali was born in 1971 and got his phd in 2000 so saying Ukraine educational system is/was bad is akin to saying Soviet educational system was bad. In fact even though many academics would have been enticed by higher wages in the West, the learning structure remained in place and that's what counts. The same could be said for Russia, and Russia wouldn't be where it is today if it had a totally dysfunctional educational system back then.
So again vitali klitchko, heavyweight champion of the world and really the top guy for more than a decade (which is a monstrous achievement in itself that separates one from the common humans given how tough and competitive the sport is), phd, mayor of the capital of his country for years, is a mediocrity, is that what you are saying? Just check that fight with Lennox Lewis, Klitschko got horribly cut and looked like a squashed tomato yet he was winning the fight!
Of course, not the "sharpest knife in the drawer" https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9e/Klitschko_Kramnik_2002_Dortmund.jpg
You think there was no corruption in the Ukrainian educational system in 2000?
Otherwise, you argue with strawmen and otherwise act like a fanboi.
You forgot the "/sarc" at the end. :)
I can't believe the ridiculous partisanship of some of these people above
LOL, and who exactly is going to fight? Does Ukraine have even one Ukrainian soldier left?
What am I missing here? The news states 100's of thousand Ukrainians dead, they are deporting ukes from Poland and other border states back to Uke to fight, they are dragging people out of hospitals to fight, what sort of BS is this? Ukraine is finished.
Russia started advancing towards Kupiansk about 3 months ago, they are yet to reach it.
The completion of a build up for a powerful offensive is far away in time, at the earliest next summer as Simplicius repeatedly stated in previous articles.
If Ukraine resists until mid 2024 then the Western military industrial complex will have picked up production enough to allow them to entrench and keep an effective defensive posture.
So unless something happens this winter we are heading to a stalemate
If Ukraine resists until mid 2024 then the Western military industrial complex will have picked up production enough to allow them to entrench
wet dreams lol
Great analysis as always sir!
https://askeptic.substack.com/p/russia-ukraine-reports-2023-09-25
If the Su-24s are firing from over the Black Sea, immediately the question comes up where the hell the MiG-31s with the R-37Ms are?
The moment the Su-24s take off, the MiG-31s are supposed to go up, observe the whole landscape from way above, and shoot them down with the long-range AAMs. While they themselves are way out of range of any SAM Ukraine has.
But that is not happening for some mysterious reason...
You're right that's how theoretically it should be done, particularly with the 31's famous Zaslon look-down radar. However, according to this at least: https://i.imgur.com/wySGRU7.jpg
No 31s are stationed in Crimea. I know one crashed last year in Belbek, Crimea. But I'm not sure if it was just visiting or they're stationed there, and if so maybe that changed. Either way for some reason they may not be there which means the Su-24s can get off their missiles much faster than a Mig-31 can find and target them.
Of course I don't know for a fact they're not stationed in Crimea--maybe they are. If they are, then I honestly don't know why they wouldn't be scrambled in such a way. If they aren't then that explains it. Why they wouldn't be stationed there is also a mystery--the only guess I can make is that due to their low numbers and high strategic importance, Crimea may be a tad too close for comfort for Russia to station them as they can be sabotaged or hit by local drones there. Su-34s etc are similar in number but the difference is they are still being actively produced, whereas Mig-31s aren't to my knowledge which means every loss of those is painful
The latter might have some truth to it.
MiG-31s are critically important for an eventual strategic strike on Europe as the main Kinzhal carrier right now, so they have to be carefully preserved.
Russia is actually desperately short on hypersonic ALCM launch platforms. It's one thing to have the missiles, but another altogether to be able to launch a strategically devastating salvo.
Not short at all. Not only can Tu-22Ms carry Kinzhals but just last month Russia has already announced that Su-34s have now successfully carried out Kinzhal strikes.
On top of that, given the fact that Russia is literally the only country on earth currently fielding fully deployed hypersonic missiles of all types including ALCM, it's pretty embarrassing for someone to say Russia is "desperately short" on them.
No, that was a misunderstanding - FighterBomber explained it. The Su-34s launched FAB-1500 UMPKs, not Kinzhals, then the media got it mixed up.
The Kinzhal carriers are:
1) MiG-31K, of which there are a few dozen, and which each carry one
2) Tu-22M3, of which there are <60, which each carry three.
Now apply the usual readiness factors of 50-70% and we arrive at a total salvo of at most 150 Kinzhals.
Sure, presumably there will be ground launched Zircons added too at some point, but for a fast disabling strike, which may be necessary very, very soon, that is not enough. It's just too many targets around Europe, and these missiles reportedly can only carry <50-Kt warheads.
That might not even be enough to take out NATO's airfields, nuclear weapon bases and missile launch sites, let alone everything else that needs to be disabled.
>it's pretty embarrassing for someone to say Russia is "desperately short" on them.
It's not me saying it, Russian military experts and even the generals in charge have said it many times. They need a lot more ALCM launch capacity than they have now.
That's why they are expanding the Tu-160 fleet and looking for lighter hypersonic missiles for the Su-57s.
The problem is this isn't the USSR that could crank these out in huge numbers on a very short notice, it's the shell of the former glory that is modern Russia
P.S. A rarely discussed reason for the US forcing Russia to start the war the way it did may well be that they had to destroy Russia before the Russian strategic build up was completed. After that it would have been too late.
And they may well achieve that goal the way things are going.
Right now Russia is clearly not ready yet - the super-duper weapons exist, but are not deployed in the needed numbers.
There is no need in multiple tactical nuclear weapon strikes on Europe. And in case it goes into full war, no tactical nukes will be used. It will be a full blown nuclear exchange and end to our civilization.
According to Lavrov, the US and Russial ALREADY are engaged in a STATE OF WAR.
As Lavrov recently stated at the UN:
The US is “effectively engaged in hostilities with us, using the Ukrainians as fodder.”
"You can call this whatever you want to call this, but they are directly at war with us,” he said. “We call this a hybrid war. But that doesn’t change the reality."
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/washington-fighting-against-emergence-genuine-multipolar-world-order-lavrov-tells-un
it's the shell of the former glory that is modern Russia
AHAHAHAHAHHAHA
total BS
1st) why do you need kinzhals in all out war there will be ICBMs. land based and subs/ 40-50 salvo of kinzhal we have. do you need more? why do you need it? for who? for all out nato war? it will be entire strategic forces then and not kinzhals. are you aware that kinzhals dont hit USA and you need icbms?)
2) you dont need thousands of jets launch thousands of kinzhals.
3) russian military experts.. they are not "russian" military experts. they consume trash from ukie sources
4) shell of former glory is 100% dumb statement. russia now is MORE capable than ussr in 1980s for example.
Do you have any idea what the industrial capacity of the USSR was, how many nukes (and everything else) it produced, etc.?
Also, all of these super weapons are just resurrected 1970s and 1980s Soviet developments.
It is great that they were resurrected, but whether the ability to initiate such projects rather than just finish them has been recovered is still an open question.
Does a MiG-31 have the range to get munitions all that close to western Europe?
Not just Mig-31's; the Russians have Su-27's, Su-35's, Su-57's, Mig-29's, and all sorts of CAP assets which could be covering the black sea. It may be an economy issue, that they simply don't see the need to expend so much effort/money/resources (planes are expensive to fly) and simply prefer to tank the hits and rely on ground based AA
A 24/7 CAP requires 24/7 AWACS coverage of the area of interest, in this case the Black Sea. Russia simply cannot do that with the limited AWACS assets it has. CAP without AWACS leaves big gaps.
This is likely part of why NATO air based surveillance increases just prior to Su-24 launch, they are verifying gaps in radar coverage and that no random CAP flights are in range to take down the aircraft in flight.
24/7 AWACS coverage
of entire 1000 km frontline?
its impossible. to much resources.
The Russ deficiency in AWACs has been previously denied and targeted and hit by the Ukies.I have known this ever since a bunch of VIPs escaped Mariupol in helicopters undetected because they are "flying17 feet over the water." Then you watch videos Ukie helicopters fly under the electrical wires and S-34s going 17 feet over tree tops and you understand the problem. That is how Z gets into and out of the front lines. The Russian fleet is supposed to be out there in the Black Sea watching for these things, but apparently they are vulnerable to speedboat drones zipping 0 feet above the water. The solution will be (or is) phased array radar (which should work well reflecting off water) or multiple drone radar emitters coordinated to multiple receivers. Or I wonder if you could do it by hijacking Musk's system. It is a war of trenches, team assaults, drones, AWACs, and electronic warfare. Soon, it will be the daisy cutters taking out entire treelines, or, or our beloved cluster bombs. It will get ugly between now and the election. I understand there are a few new viruses around. I'd rather take out the Nazi government, the ones getting the US money, rather that the grunt, but that is just an observation intended to save lives.
can awacs detect things that flying 17 feet over water and trees? how far away? not sure.
dont worry russia will deafeat everything and everyone.
we are good
I'm not complaining, just observing. This war is new for everyone. I am afraid it is becoming more depersonalized, human beings against machines.
Second issue - we all know why there are no A-50s (oligarchs spent the money on megayachts instead), but at least Russia could have invested into cheaper surveillance drones analogous to the US Global Hawks. Or bought them from China, which has done that.
That hasn't been/isn't being done for some reason either.
Is it your full time job as a propaganda operative to comment on Simplicius' articles the moment they are published? Or is it just happening for some mysterious reason...
Ever heard of e-mail alerts?
The A-50/oligarch connection is incorrect. In fact, Russia has a standard number of AWACS that's commensurate with its size. I've established before how the U.S. itself, being a huge megapower much larger than Russia, has only ~30 E-3 AWACs. Considering that U.S. is much more than double the population of Russia, that means Russia's 15-20 AWACs to U.S.'s 30 is fairly comparable and proportionate.
By the way, AWACS are highly expensive and rare, which is why only the top couple superpower countries even have them to begin with. China too has a similar number to Russia and they are far older, inferior systems.
With that said, of course I still wish Russia would have focused more on manufacturing them, but we have to keep things in perspective, Russia still has roughly the 2nd most in the world after the U.S.
The problem is that it doesn't scale like that.
It has to scale with respect to geographic size and the threat vectors, and Russia is much bigger and surrounded by NATO.
The CONUS currently is actually largely defenseless in terms of AD coverage, but it is not surrounded by missile launch platforms ready to fire.
So Russia actually needs 2-3x as many AWACS planes as NATO has, but instead it has 4-5x fewer.
The current situation with the Storm Shadows is in fact extremely concerning with respect to the capability to repel a hypothetical mass low-flying CM launch. The US converted four Ohio class SSBNs to SSGNs with 154 cruise missiles each, plus it has a whole bunch of ships with lots of VLS cells each too, etc. Imagine that gets fired from the Arctic and the Baltic Sea as terrain hugging missiles with nuclear warheads each and the performance of Russian AD is the same as it is in Sevastopol (which is great in comparison to the competitors, but ultimately far short of sufficient to disable the threat). You would need dozens of AWACS planes to even track it all, and Russia doesn't have those. Not looking good at all.
To properly think about the size of western $$ Oligarchy's: USA, Canada, Australia, Britain, New Zealand & other territories & 900 worldwide vulnerable bases, shows western Oligarchy empire as much more divided, stretched & unprotected as a territory with its AWACS & other military resources. Comparatively Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Belarus etc., are continuous, attached, overlapping & integrated in distances & size for their existing defence systems. In any case the vulnerability of both are similar. The worst part is that longstanding imperial senile war-mongers like Biden, Trudeau & Sunak are such easily indoctrinated, proud war-mongers. As such these $$ Oligarch puppets are incapable of engaging in open both-sided, equal-time, recorded & published dialogue collaboration with either their own citizens or perceived enemies to raise issues positive for agreement or for Conflict Resolution. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/d-participatory-structure/1-both-sides-now-equal-time-recorded-dialogues
It is preferrable to have more AWACS planes, but it depends on the economy and not country size. There are many more other matters that need attention. You can't use considerable part of your military spending on the AWACS alone.
Agreed, one weak spot for the Russian Air Force considering the landmass it has to cover. Especially since a lot of the combat airframes of the older models of interceptors must be coming to their end-of-life. Oh how I miss the Mig-25.
I do not know if you work for UA or just total pessimist in life - everything you think about RU is bad , bad ,bad. 'Surrounded by NATO' - WHAT??? Check the length of Russian border please and check how much of it borders NATO members. https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%93%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%83%D0%B4%D0%B0%D1%80%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B2%D0%B5%D0%BD%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%8F_%D0%B3%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%86%D0%B0_%D0%A0%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%B8 . is it even 5%?? wow, surrounded indeed.
please stop with doom and gloom.
"The US converted four Ohio class SSBNs to SSGNs with 154 cruise missiles each, plus it has a whole bunch of ships with lots of VLS cells each too, etc."
Russia would know before such nuclear rockets even load into ships. Not mention that entire US fleet will reach launch regions.
Before that Russia will ask wtf where are you going murica, unload rockets and sit down at base. if not - Sarmat icbms gonna kiss USA territory
First strike is impossible. Opposite side will know it in advance.
They're already loaded
Phased array would work as would hive technology connecting multiple airborne transmitter drones and multiple receivers (hopefully being developed). Phased array should work well over water.
US has 30 AWAC's to cover their entire global hegemony plus N. America defence, due to US/Russian borders placing them as next door neighbours in Alaska, about an arty shell apart in the bottleneck straits. Russia is focused soley on defending their country, as expansive as it is, & helping defend Syria. The disparity is not 2:1 in US favour in Ukraine theatre. Rus AWAC's are targets, US aren't, yet. My guess, Russia is accepting some losses, holding back their AWAC for if/when the shit hits the fan directly with NUTO. Where Russia lags, of course, is in surveillance satellites. Muskrat's Starlink has lost 212 satellites just since June 23. First launched in '19, with expected 5 year service life, the failure rate- cause unknown- may cause tempory blind spots that might be taken advantage of by Russia for launching attacks, depending on if some of the "failures" are consecutive. Certain weapons nobody discloses, yet effects are noticed. Weather manipulation in warfare is definitely one where it contradicts the agenda of global warming & is left undisclosed, since they're using it on their own citizens. That's my 2 cents on the subject.
My understanding is that Iran has just unveiled a new "GlobalHawk" type long-flying surveillance drone, so perhaps it won't be long before Russia acquires them as well. Sorry, but I'm not enough of a war nerd to remember the Iranian name for this drone, but should be easy enough to find with an internet search. Looked pretty impressive to me, though.
LOL Global Hawks cheaper than A50s.
I'd bet a large sum of money this is totally untrue.
I live in SF killafornia and I can tell you it ain't all that. The lack of a societal safety net makes scAmerica a sick country.
Sad to hear nUkrania is recruiting children rather than capitulating, and sadder that a year and a half ago this war could have already been settled, until Boris the clown went to see the paid actor elenskies and gave him BorisVirus23.
They took me out of Russia, but they can't take the Russian outta me
Always thanks for digging under the "headlines" and social-media-MSM-only "successes"....
A few notes.
i imagine the awacs or drone circling for hours is a good sign an attack is coming too.
That hotel looks wrecked.
I will never tire of seeing tank factory footage, especially them travelling by crane.
You need to drive a real tank to where you put the fake tank, tracks show easily.
Very good read, kept me up past my bedtime
"I had forgotten to post this a while back. Ukrainian journalist Roman Revedzhuk who had previously run for office and was involved in Ukrainian politics for a long time revealed that he had received an insider report from the SBU that Ukraine had more than 310,000 KIA as of July"
In my comment on August 14, I wrote: "The minimum estimate of Ukrainian losses is ~330,000 "tarasiks" (the contemptuous name of the ukrainian nazis. From the common name Taras). Killed."
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sitrep-81323-afu-struggles-for-symbolic/comment/22343985?utm_source=activity_item
How bizarrely the deck is shuffled... Even filthy Ukrainian propagandists, through their teeth, are reluctantly forced to admit the minimum estimates of our Ministry of Defense.
Naturally, the number of Ukrainian corpses has long exceeded these figures, moreover, the Ukrainian authorities themselves will not be able to give the exact number of "soldiers" destroyed - they simply do not care and statistics are not actually kept.
The sense of Russians’ belief in victory is palpable. Couple that with determination, then consider the rapid advancement in military technology and real commitment to excellence. NATO / Ukraine can bother RF from time with flea bites, but as this war progresses, the outcome of a resounding Russian victory is inevitable. Maybe time to consider investments in Russian markets, because after this war is complete, and BRICs move to prominence, Russia will likely experience a renaissance and assume world leadership alongside China.
Still no confirmation if they indeed wiped out Black Sea command structure incl CIC.
UKR scored a big media hit yesterday, it was all over MSM. You would have thought that Russkies would either have only used the basement/shelter levels of this building or put a guided missile destroyer offshore to guard against sea-skimmers.
Bad optics....Or dumb Admirals.
I really don't know why people still consider Ukrainian propaganda spread by Western MSM, the least bit relevant.
Every tempest in a teapot is talked up - but this conflict is about real results, not spin.
It's the effect it has. Splashed over all networks etc. RT showing the commander on a zoom chat with Shoigu does nothing to quieten the "chatter" that Ukr gave the Russians a bloody nose.
Get him on RT with todays newspaper shown and telling the World "I'm still here bitches"
Twitter war impact only makes a difference to Twitter warriors.
What's going on in Ukraine is a real war - and it will be won via real war means.
There's a reason why the West is getting ever more pessimistic about Ukraine - it is because all the MSM lying and Western spin doctoring in the world, even with victorious Twitter War headlines, don't change the facts on the ground.
I wouldn't know, I got banned in 2018 :-)
You seem to be stuck on the idea that what you, or I, or the western public thinks matters in any way. It doesn't. Not even for the tiniest fraction. Only the west lives in this illusion that their perception of reality means something. Or that a 'battle of perceptions' needs to be fought.
So the Russians, both officials and public, completely ignore it. And why shouldn't they? Why should they spend time and effort on something that is entirely meaningless and only exists in the heads of the gullible and those in the west in need of some kind of assurance regarding their preferred perception? It's not their responsibility to cater to our psychological needs.
And it is blatantly obvious that the Ukraine is lying about having inflicted those casualties. I'm surprised I even have to point it out to people here. If there were indeed 34, or more, Russians killed, there would also be many more injured. There would have been a parade of ambulances going back and forth to the place, not to mention the frantic search for survivors (and bodies). It would be impossible to hide and it would all over the western media. Instead, there's been a complete absence. Conclusion: Ukraine lying, Russia telling the truth. What a surprise.
To be honest, it's rather disappointing that people keep falling for this. That they only seem to be able to focus on what's shoved in their face and never take a moment to stop and think about the things they also should be seeing (but aren't) if what they are being told is true.
I just wrote to Matthew Mpoke Bigg, the New York Times reporter who put the Sevastopol claims on today's front page:
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/09/25/world/europe/ukraine-russia-black-sea-fleet.html
Here's what I said:
Regarding Ukrainian claims in Sevastopol
If you want to verify Ukrainian claims before publishing, checking Simplicius on substack could be helpful:
https://simplicius76.substack.com
Best wishes,
Leland
Let me be clear, Propaganda kept various regimes fighting until the bitter end. Goebbels was the master at this as have been so many others since. Look at how Reagan's SDI scared the USSR shitless and was a prime mover to various peace accords.
The West does not care about "till the last Ukrainian"
I served in the army in the '80's in Germany and we also went through various alerts during that time which scared the shit out of me (Because I knew what was facing us across the Fulda gap and the threat of NBC warfare)
With age I don't fall for anything anymore BUT too many modern Westerners do. Having to educate friends who I thought had brains and could read history since 1991 has shocked me.
Anyways, I'm going back to clean my guns :-) Stay safe.
Yeah sorry, which started as a reply to your comment turned into a more general rant which wasn't meant personally.
Nevertheless, our opinions here in the west, and by 'our' I mean the general population don't matter at all, certainly not to the Russians, and probably not at all. The few outliers that remain, like many of those following Simplicius, aren't going to make a meaningful impact on the general population, and the rest, the 'sheeple', will believe whatever they are spoon-fed. 'We were always at war with Oceania'.
My point is that we have far surpassed the comparatively basic and simple propagandistic machinations of Goebbels and his ilk. Rather than having to convince the population of something specific and having to work at that, populations now are primed to uncritically consume whatever narrative is fed to them. And the bulk does just that. They may bicker amongst themselves about some of the details, but that may even be a feature, rather than a bug, to create the illusion of (meaningful) differences of opinions.
Which brings us back to why the Russians should care, or make any effort to feed us a different narrative. Most of us have been trained to be at least fearful of the Russians, if not outright hate them. Any narrative coming out of Russia needs to be accompanied by a truckload of additional evidence proving that they're not lying, or it will be dismissed out of hand, as we've also been trained to believe that Russia always lies, whereas whatever the Ukraine says, or the western MSM, is accepted at face value, even if it flies in the face of obvious facts and evidence, logic, and basic common knowledge.
American propaganda from birth.
Agreed.
But don't forget that the majority of people in the West aren't playing close enough attention to this to understand what is actually going on. For this majority of people, the Twitter War can easily convey the wrong impression.
Unfortunately, while the "Schrodinger's cat" situation can last for some time, it does have to resolve into reality at some point and we are rapidly approaching that.
What is happening in Crimea is 1) literally what vicky nuland said would happen earlier this year (that crimea was a legit target and that the US would help attack 2) part of a "denial" strategy to make crimea "unviable" for the Russians. Presumably to make life miserable for the residents or something
Echoes of the blitz in ww2, when the Germans gave up on actually destroying Britain's air force and instead decided to hit London, and eventually with the first cruise missiles in history too
I'm going to keep saying it, I believe taking Odesa will end the war sooner than later as NATO will have lost the dream to control the Black Sea, and they will bow out.
I have long said that Odessa was key. The question is whether Russia has the stomach to do it.
This fight won't end when Ukraine receives a knockout blow, because that would result in a horrible post-war situation. It will end when Ukraine stops getting up from the canvas. Ukraine has to make a conscious choice to submit...
And the Russians stopping at the Dneiper and taking the coast till Odessa will not stop this. It just won't.
Russia can ill afford the cost and sanctions will not be lifted. As you state, it needs a "peace accord" which does not look anywhere close.
I appreciate Simplicius' assessment how never before in human history has such advanced military design on multiple platforms & levels including the most advanced Artificial Intelligence as the missile, aircraft, defence & whole national military guidance core, ever been deployed by both sides in a conflict. This is a Military-Industrial Complex & computer conflict of the most frightening human & resource devastation. This war is western $$ Oligarchy orchestrated ALLIES grudge revenge 78 year later, against Ukraine's WW2 participation in the 12 nation AXIS, putting Russia in the role of destroying Ukraine as the Allied enemy.
For Brazil, Russia, India, China, South-Africa, Iran, Saudi-Arabia & aligned nations BRICS to more effectively engage the brutal intellectual cowardice of western Oligarchy is to culturally engage whole populations & by this means the $$ 'S'elected captured government representatives with Both-sides-now, Equal-time, Recorded & Published Dialogue. Formal responsibility to dialogue was a part of all humanity's worldwide 'indigenous' (Latin 'self-generating') COUNCIL PROCESS, once a dialectic-right to raise issues positive for agreement or for Conflict Resolution. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/d-participatory-structure/1-both-sides-now-equal-time-recorded-dialogues
While Russia is duly & justifiably protecting the many 10s of millions of Russian speaking Ukrainians from slaughter with its SVO, it must recognize that the most productive investment going forward is direct engagement of human 'mind' ('caring'). i.e. Population submissive economic collusion with Oligarchy must be partially undone through mass cultural 'debate' (French 'de' = 'undo' + 'bate' = 'the-fight').
Mohandas Gandhi stated, "Non-violence springs from love, cowardice from hate. Non-violence always suffers, cowardice would always inflict suffering. Non-violence & cowardice go ill together. I can imagine a fully armed man to be at heart a COWARD." Gandhi is speaking here to the intelligent mind of the soldier as an active contributor to his or her community, society & ultimately to the international agent in conversation of war & peace. That portion of uncaptured Social Media today can afford to contribute to such liberation, if converted from Mono to Dialogue.
LIBYAN EXAMPLE: In retrospect, concerned western activists failed in our typical suppressed media monologues to stimulate such real in depth engaged public dialogue, around our travesty in Libya. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/d-participatory-structure/1-communication-converting-social-media-from-mono-to-dialogue-libya
This is similar to my position. My Open Letter is here:
https://fund-balance.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/An-Open-Letter-to-the-Russian-and-American-People-in-honor-of-Darya-Dugina.pdf
Leland Lehrman, Thank you for your open letter & quoting of such as Darya Dugina, Rudolf Steiner, Alexander Bovdunov & others. Thanks for introducing your work & research.
MEANINGFUL PACIFISM = 'SHARING-RIGHT-TO-WORK-&-LIVEIHOOD'
From 1969-80 I had the privilege of living & working among 45,000 Russian Doukhobor (closely aligned with Lev Tolstoy), 3000 German Mennonite, 1000 English Quaker & American pacifist communities in the West Kootenays of British Columbia. George Podmorov, a friend who had come over on the Doukhobor ship, as a 5 year old in 1899, reflected how he felt the pacifist communities, had lost the national & urban missions of their formation in Russian, German, English & American cities. Each settler group in concert with Oligarch armed & financed colonialism, facilitated by Army clearance brigades, had contributed to the annihilation of 1st Nation 'indigenous' (Latin 'self-generating') peoples worldwide & even shunned 1st Nation survivor, now refugees, when they returned to their ancient now colonial settler occupied home. Knowing I am from Montreal, George encouraged me to re-engage back with my roots.
While these so-called 'peace' communities were taking some responsibility for their lifestyle contributions with such phrases as "Toil & a peaceful life", many internal factors caused their original self-sufficiency goals & wonderful ecological enterprises to fail. These Anabaptists were 100 times better than the fake 'pacifists' of today who only protest, lobby & complain about government actions, while doing next to nothing in their own lives, production & consumption patterns individually or collectively. However they could & still can learn from 1st Nations & their own indigenous heritage worldwide for implementing balanced RELATIONAL 'ECONOMY' (Greek 'oikos' = 'home' + 'namein' = 'care-&-nurture'). Russia's Petr Kropotkin in his 1915 book Mutual-Aid, a Factor of Evolution is excellent. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/c-relational-economy
False 'co-operatives' (L 'co' = 'together' + 'operatives' = 'multi-stakeholders') with the false One-member/One-vote did & do not empower individuals nor social enterprises in the cycle of contribution, experience, expertise & decision-making-acumen. Hence colonial co-ops & fake non-profits, haven't been able to unite stakeholders in share investment, ownership, Board representation & experience-based decision-making. These human mistakes were typical of the Rochdale co-ops in England, Kibbutz of Israel & ongoing false Co-ops today worldwide.
Religious & Pacifist groups were about 50% of the 10s of millions of European economic-ecological settler-refugees from failed European Oligarch rule. Unfortunately most settlers, instead of immigrating to 1st Nations & honoring ancient 'indigenous' laws & customs, only imposed the same dysfunction left & right. I'm involved for 60 of my 71 years of age now in solidarity living & working with 1st Nations & indigenous peoples worldwide. Although I worked with Co-ops for some 40 years, I've also been privileged to learn & implement traditional indigenous Multistakeholder Participatory investment, ownership & Board-Representation in industry & commerce as ECONOMIC-DEMOCRACY. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/c-relational-economy/8-economic-democracy
Douglas, please be in touch at lelandatwork@fund-balance.com and 518-567-4452
Let me know what you think of the rest of my work at
http://mothersarms.substack.com and online you will find the balance... some of which needs to be rewritten given new understandings developed over the years.
OSHO-The Rebel
BELOVED MASTER,
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A REBEL AND A REVOLUTIONARY?
Maneesha, there is not only a quantitative difference between a rebel and a revolutionary, there is also a qualitative difference.
The revolutionary is part of the political world. His approach is through politics. His understanding is that changing the social structure is enough to change the man.
The rebel is a spiritual phenomenon. His approach is absolutely individual. His vision is that if we want to change the society, we have to change the individual. Society in itself does not exist; it is only a word, like ‘crowd’, but if you go to find it, you will not find it anywhere. Wherever you will encounter someone, you will encounter an individual. Society is only a collective name, just a name, not a reality, with no substance. The individual has a soul,has a possibility of evolution, of change, of transformation. Hence the difference is tremendous.
The rebel is the very essence of religion. He brings into the world a change of consciousness and if the consciousness changes, then the structure of the society is bound to follow it. But vice versa is not right and it has been proved by all the revolutions, because they have all failed.
No revolution has yet succeeded in changing man; but it seems man is not aware of the fact. He still goes on thinking in terms of revolution, of changing society, of changing the government, of changing the bureaucracy, of changing laws, political systems. Feudalism, capitalism, communism, socialism, fascism they are all in their own way revolutionary. They all have failed, and failed utterly, because man has remained the same.
A Gautam Buddha, a Zarathustra, a Jesus – these people are rebels. Their trust is in the individual. They have not succeeded either, but their failure is totally different than the failure of the revolutionary. Revolutionaries have tried their methodology in many countries, in many ways, and have failed. But a Gautam Buddha has not succeeded because he has not been tried. A Jesus has not succeeded because Jews crucified him and Christians buried him. He has not been tried he has not been given a chance. The rebel is still an unexperimented dimension.
My sannyasins have to be rebels not revolutionaries. The revolutionary belongs to a very mundane sphere. The rebel and his rebelliousness are sacred. The revolutionary cannot stand alone, he needs a crowd, a political party, a government. He needs power, and power corrupts – and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
All the revolutionaries who have succeeded in capturing power have been corrupted by the power. They could not change the power and its institutions; the power changed them and their minds and corrupted them. Only names became different, but the society continued to remain the same. Man’s consciousness has not grown for centuries. Only once in awhile a man blossoms, but in millions of people the blossoming of one man is not a rule, it is the exception. And because he is alone, the crowd cannot tolerate him. He becomes a kind of humiliation; his very presence becomes insulting, because he opens your eyes,makes you aware of your potential and your future. And it hurts your ego that you have done nothing to grow, to be more conscious, to be more loving, to be more ecstatic, to be more creative, to be more silent – to make a beautiful world around you.
You have not contributed to the world, your existence has not been a blessing here but a curse. You introduce your anger, your violence, your jealousy, your competitiveness, your lust for power. You make the world a war field; you are blood thirsty and you make others blood thirsty. You deprive humanity of its humanness. You help man to fall below humanity, even sometimes below animals. Hence a Gautam Buddha or a Kabir or a Chuang Tzu hurts you because he has blossomed, and you are just standing there. Springs come and go, nothing blossoms in you; no birds come and make their nest on you, and sing their songs around you. It is better to crucify a Jesus and poison a Socrates – just to remove them – so that you need not feel in any way spiritually inferior. The world has known only very few rebels.
But now is the time: if humanity proves incapable of producing a large number of rebels – a rebellious spirit – then our days on the earth are numbered. Then this century may become our graveyard. We are coming very close to that point.
We have to change our consciousness, create more meditative energy in the world, create more lovingness. We have to destroy the old man and his ugliness, his rotten ideologies, his stupid discriminations, idiotic superstitions, and create a new man, with fresh eyes, with new values; a discontinuity with the past – that’s the meaning of rebelliousness.
These three words will help you to understand...
Reform
means a modification. The old remains, you give it a new form, a new shape – a kind of renovation of an old building. Its original structure remains; you whitewash it, you clean it, you make a few windows, a few new doors.
Revolution
goes deeper than reform. The old remains, but more changes are introduced even in its basic structure – not only changing its color and opening a few windows and doors, but perhaps making new stories, taking it higher into the sky. But the old is not destroyed, it remains hidden behind the new; in fact, it remains the very foundation of the new. Revolution is a continuity with the old.
Rebellion
is a discontinuity. It is not reform, it is not revolution; it is simply disconnecting yourself from all that is old. The old religions, the old political ideologies, the old man – all that is old, you disconnect yourself from it. You start life afresh, from scratch. And unless we prepare humanity to begin life again – a resurrection, a death of the old and a birth of the new...
It is very significant to remember that the day Gautam Buddha was born, his mother died; as he was coming out of the womb, his mother was going out of existence. Perhaps this was historical, because he was brought up by his mother’s sister – he never saw his mother alive. And now it has become a traditional idea in Buddhism that whenever a Buddha is born, his mother dies immediately, his mother cannot survive. I take it as a symbolic and very significant indication. It means the birth of a rebel is the death of the old.
The revolutionary tries to change the old; the rebel simply comes out of the old, just as the snake slips out of the old skin, and never looks back. Unless we create such rebellious people around the earth, man has no future. The old man has brought man to his ultimate death. It is the old mind, the old ideologies, the old religions – they have all combined together to bring about this situation of global suicide. Only a new man can save humanity and this planet, and the beautiful life of this planet.
I teach rebellion, not revolution. To me, rebelliousness is the essential quality of a religious man. It is spirituality in its absolute purity.
The days of revolution are over. The French revolution failed, the Russian revolution failed, the Chinese revolution failed. In this country we have seen the Gandhian revolution fail, and it failed in front of Gandhi’s own eyes. Gandhi was teaching nonviolence his whole life, and in front of his own eyes the country was divided; millions of people were killed, burned alive; millions of women were raped. And Gandhi himself was shot dead. That is a strange end of a nonviolent saint.
And he himself forgot all his teachings. Before his revolution was secured, Gandhi was asked by an American thinker, Louis Fischer,
”What are you going to do with the arms, armies, and all the different weapons, when India becomes an independent country?”
Gandhi said,
”I’m going to throw all the arms into the ocean, and send all the armies to work in the fields and in the gardens.”
And Louis Fischer asked,
”But have you forgotten?Somebody can invade your country.”
Gandhi said, ”We will welcome him. If somebody invades us, we will accept him as a guest and tell him, ‘You can also live here, just the way we are living. There is no need to fight.’”
But he completely forgot all his philosophy – that’s how revolutions fail. It is very beautiful to talk about these things, but when power comes into your hands...
First, Mahatma Gandhi did not accept any post in the government. It was out of fear, because how was he going to answer the whole world? What about throwing the arms into the ocean? What about sending the armies to work in the fields? He escaped from the responsibility for which he had been fighting his whole life, seeing that it was going to create tremendous trouble for him; he would have to contradict his own philosophy. But the government was made up of his own disciples,chosen by him. He did not ask them to dissolve the armies, on the contrary. When Pakistan attacked India, he did not say to the Indian government, ”Now go to the borders and welcome the invaders as guests.” Instead, he blessed the first three airplanes that were going to bomb Pakistan. The three airplanes flew over the villa where he was staying in New Delhi, and he came out into the garden to bless them. And with his blessings they went ahead to destroy our own people, who just a few days before were our brothers and our sisters. Unashamedly, without ever seeing the contradiction...
The Russian revolution failed in front of the very eyes of Lenin. He was preaching according to Karl Marx, that
”When the revolution comes, we will dissolve marriage, because marriage is part of private property; as private property goes out, marriage will also go out. People can be lovers, can live together; children will be taken care of by the society.”
But as the revolution succeeded, he saw the enormousness of the problem: to take care of so many children... who is going to take care of those children? And to dissolve marriage... for the first time he saw that your society depends on the family. The family is a basic unit – without the family, your society will be dissolved. And it will be dangerous – dangerous to creating a dictatorship of the proletariat, because people will become more independent if they don't have the responsibilities of the family.
You can see the logic. If people have the responsibilities of a wife, of an old father, an old mother, of children, they are so burdened they cannot be rebellious.They cannot go against the government, they have too many responsibilities. But if people have no responsibilities, if the old people are taken care of by the government – as they had been promising before the revolution – if children are taken care of by the government, and people can live together for as long as they love each other, they don’t need permission for marriage, and they don’t need any divorce; it is their private personal affair and the government has no business to interfere....
But when it came about that the power was in the hands of the Communist Party, and Lenin was the leader, everything changed. Once power comes into their hands, people start thinking differently. Now the thinking was that to make people so independent of responsibilities is dangerous – they will become too individualistic. So let them be burdened with a family. They will remain enslaved just because of an old mother, an old father, a sick wife, or children and their education. Then they don’t have the time or the courage to go against the government in any matter. The family is one of the greatest traps that society has used for millennia to keep man a slave. Lenin forgot all about dissolving families.
It is very strange how revolutions have failed. They have failed at the hands of the revolutionaries themselves, because once the power comes into their hands, they start thinking in different ways. Then they become too attached to the power. Then their whole effort is how to keep the power forever in their hands, and how to keep the people enslaved.
The future needs no other revolutions. The future needs a new experiment which has not been tried yet. Although for thousands of years there have been rebels, they remained alone – individuals. Perhaps the time was not ripe for them. But now the time is not only ripe... if you don’t hurry, the time has come to an end.
By the end of this century, either man will disappear, or a new man with a new vision will appear on the earth. He will be a rebel.
Angostura, RE Revolution versus Rebel (rebellion?) The examples you give are REACTIONS based during the past 7000 years of fake 'money' (Greek 'mnemosis' = 'memory') Oligarch commanded & controlled 'exogenous' (L. 'other-generated') colonial empire. The books of justifying colonial empire invasion & brutality are the Torah or Old Testament based in Noahide Laws or the Negative 10 Commandment say 'Thou-shalt-not' do this or that essentially starting with indigenous Babylon's overthrow by Oligarchy ruling with fake 'money' & controlling every failed empire since.
Let's start instead
EXACTLY AS WE ARE where we already live & work in order to enable human-kind, individuals, family, extended-family, communities to live, work & thrive together PROACTIVELY & POSITIVELY at all levels, it is time to discuss about all humanity's ancient worldwide 'indigenous' (Latin 'self-generating') Cultural-Fractal ('Fraction, multiplier, building-block, where-the-part-contains-the-whole') self-organization, accounting, memory, compensation, empowerment & decision-making together. Previous to this Oligarch period of extreme violence, all humanity worked culturally.
INDIGENOUS 'GREAT-GOOD-WAY-OF-KINDNESS' aka 'GREAT-LAW-OF-PEACE' aka 'CONSTITUTION (Known by indigenous peoples worldwide)
Its important to start & continue with humans exactly as we are. Loving, intimate, intergenerational, female-male, interdisciplinary, critical-mass, economies-of-scale in the ~100 person Multihome. Across Turtle-Island / N. America for example were ~110 nations organized into ~23 Confederacies of 5-7 nations. This fractal grouping at every individual, family, friends, extended-family, ~100 (50-150) person Multihome-Dwelling-Complex, neighbourhood, City, Region, Nation, Confederacies, Continental & Hemispheric Councils functioned with all levels being strong & positive. This loving governance is known by all humanity's worldwide indigenous ancestors & 1st Nation peoples among many names as: Kaianere'kowa (Haudenosaunee, 'People of the extended-rafters' aka 'Welcome'), Inlakesh (Maya 'I am another-you, You are another me'), Maloka (Amazon, Aymara, Jamamadi Apurina for 'Longhouse'), System-of-100s in indigenous Celtic & Slavic Europe, Zadruga ('Economy-of-friends' in Serbia-Croatia, Swadeshi in India, Tao in China with Bei referring to the Chinese character for ancient Cowrie string-shell, , Chaebol (Korea for 'Family-Economy', Keiretsu (Japanese for 'Family-Economy'), Ubuntu (southern Africa Nguni word for 'Kindness' economy) etc.
CULTURAL 'FRACTAL' (Fraction, Multiplier, Building-block, where-the-Part-contains-the-whole') 'ECONOMY' as an indigenous mathematical practice. String-shell integrates: 1) Capital (L. 'cap' = 'head' = 'collective-intelligence'), 2) Currency ('flow' in transactions & life), 3) Condolence (Social Security for all matters) 4) Collegial mentored-apprenticeship 'education' (L. 'educare' = 'to-lead-forth-from-within') Credit, 5) time-math Communication, 6) professional Costume for identification of essential public expertise & more. Indigenous Peoples & 1st Nations here implemented fractal organization, empowering individuals, families, extended-families, ~100 (50-150) person Multihome-Dwelling-Complexes (eg. Longhouse-apartment, Pueblo-townhouse & Kanata-village), towns, cities, regions, nations, confederate, continental & hemispheric councils based on the empowered bottom fractal. Today 70% of humanity live in Multihomes with average 32 dwelling-units = ~100 people. 20% of Multihome-Dwellers are extended families, living intentionally in both privacy & proximity for Social & Economic collaboration. Multihomes are the equivalencies of multi-million dollar earning, spending & infrastructure economies. Multihome-extended-family contribute trillions of $ of the most individually appropriate talents, goods, services, sharing caring/year as Turtle-Island, N-America's largest essential Economic sector, albeit unrecognized by government, education & institutions. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/c-relational-economy/1-extending-our-welcome-participatory-multihome-cohousing
DO-WE-KNOW-WHO-WE-ARE-? https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/d-participatory-structure/9-do-we-know-who-we-are web-based Community-Circular-Economy software: A) CATALOGUE talents, goods, services, resources & dreams. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/a-home/7-membership
B) MAP local proximal collaborative relations for complementary economic concertation. Baseline mapping of 105 Mohawk, Wendat & Algonquian Placenames in Tiohtiake, greater Montreal archipelago. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/a-home/5-tiohtiake-mohawk-placenames
C) ACCOUNT collective contributions, buying, selling & co-investment. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/c-relational-economy
D) COUNCIL PROCESS Both-sided, Equal-time, Recorded & Published Dialogues. https://sites.google.com/site/indigenecommunity/d-participatory-structure/1-both-sides-now-equal-time-recorded-dialogues
What happened? A couple of years ago I met Ukrainian business people at a trade fair in Johannesburg, South Africa. They came across as pretty decent fellows who wouldn't hurt a fly. Coming from their part of the world, they were comfortable giving information to a black person like myself. Sad to see Ukraine lacking the sense to see where it has been (mis)led to by those who don't have the welfare and interests of its people at heart... Many of us people of the south and others in the West, we pity Ukraine. At the same time we wonder why can't Ukraine see that it is being used.. much to the detriment of its people and possibly the world as a whole if the situation carries on like this...
Please Russianbros
Stop with the obscuring watermarks and Russian meme music
I'm trying to watch nazis blow up
Dude, keep in mind that we're talking about 20-year-old Russian soldiers uploading these videos. Believe me, I hear young guys around here bumping their insanely loud music all the time from their souped-up BMWs. They're not going to switch to Mozart any time soon :)
Tank goodness for that. If they ever feel inspired to walk the path of cultural evolution, let them switch to BACH!
Aaaaaah .... Bach!!!
But most of it does suck
Shostakovich would be the right choice!
3rd movment of the 8th symphonie blast every techno bassline away.
Shostakovich is for me (a german) the defenition of Russia.
5th - 7th - 8th -10th are eternal modernity. 15th string qart. or 1st violin are deserve hournorable mention too…
Sleep faster comrads!
There is more fascinating music than there is time to listen to it. To me it's difficult to single out a single piece or a certain composer, however, sometimes while listening to "The Well Tempered Clavier" it get the feeling that everything that came later is already there "in nuce" .
However, the "eternal modernity" gives me the vibe of being a somewhat paradox formula.
The one example of Russian music I'd suggest anybody and everybody to listen to is Rachmaninov's "Vespers" ("Das grosse Abend-und Morgenlob", "Ostervespern"). There are a number of interpretions available that are hotly discussed. You know, which is the ultimate one. For a number of reasons the famous 60ies Soviet recording is still the thing, unless you are faint of heart.
“ However, the "eternal modernity" gives me the vibe of being a somewhat paradox formula.”
Indeed it is, just like Shostakovichs music, the time they were written and formost the context he was writing in.
How to create something so beautifull with “gun to your “had?
The famous oboe melody (one could call it a profanity) in the 10th after this epic, introduction is a great example.
The base string themes of the 5th and 8th always reminded me on eastern sifi-movies. With their optimism. Of to new frontiers to explore not to conquere.
My english is not sufficiant to really express my thoughts i think.
And… yes the soviet recordings of the 60ies (and even earlyer) are very special and what struck me even more by now that many of them also got filmed and there is a incredible material on youtube. Marvinsky conducting Shostakovichs 8th for example (in the late 40ies but in color).
Could go on but have no time anymore.
May oure host forgive this off-topic conversation.
Since English is prevalently used here it seemed to be a matter of politeness to continue with it. Otherwise, with both of us being German, our conversation could have been held in our native language. I tried to keep my replies short for the same reason you mentioned. Thanks for letting me know your insightful opinion.
Russia is clearly asymmetrically responding: a group of euro and zion spooks and some russian oligarchs drowned in Lago Maggiore some months ago and everybody knows it was not an accident (official cover is "a tempest" I do not know if it is a cope or an example of Russian weather weapons).