"B said it best that 2025 saw a remarkable and precipitous decline of the West into tyranny and illiberalism." You mean 2024.
"2025 has taught us that the entire Western order must necessarily be taking direction from a centralized node of governance somewhere." Still 2024 here on the west coast Simplicius : )
Western capitalism is simply going through another systemic crisis which it has experienced many times before such as in the 1930s and 1970s. As the social and economic inequalities of capitalism intensify it will lead to greater social and political conflict. In that situation the ruling class always tries to clamp down on democratic rights as the thin veneer of the capitalist democracy is pared back to reveal the true nature of capitalism. The global economy is rapidly slowing down and the next recession will be much worse than anything since the 1970s. There is a danger that trumps trade war will cause a full blown economic depression like the smoot Hawley tariif act of 1930. In that case the capitalist system is going to resort to fascism which will accelerate the march towards world war 3.
It's frustrating to see people blaming capitalism. I suspect that they misunderstand what capitalism is. The problem is corruption, not capitalism. The political system in the United States is built on bribery. The elites enjoy special privileges which are denied to ordinary people.
Power is corrupting. Accumulating economic power leads to controlling political power. Power requires more power. The human relations get twisted. Democracy is absolutely antthetical with capitalism. In capitalism you only get a very controlled political manifestations, because it is by and large an oligarchy/plutocracy, masquerading as "democracy".
So human nature needs a better political structure to function more equitable. thus, it is not capitalism, as it wasn't feudalism, or sclavagism per se.
The only political structure that would work, which is the one that I favor, is one in which every individual has the right to peacefully dissent from any scheme that they deem as immoral or improper. Your neighbors could not vote to force you to pay for something that you don't want.
Nope, that sort of libertarianism is the opposite of a workable solution. For the long run, as the only possible path out of this pyramid structure in which humanity has been forced is full democracy, with sortition as a means of electing representatives and full transparency of decission making.
I for a long time been a proponent of this system, but by happenstance I listend to a podcast of Nate Hagen in which he interviewed a scientist specialised in studying existential risks, Luke Kemp. Luke posited that structural causes need to be identified and fixed, and the biggest fixed is more democracy, and provides the example of using sortition in selecting the individuals to decide whether the first experimental atomic bomb to be detonating - given that at the time it was a fear that the whole atmosphere might catch fire (very small theorized possibility) and that Germany was in no way going to develop an atomic bomb... But people of power wanting more power decided instead, in great secret.
Capitalists wish to earn profits. Profits are the only way to sustain a business enterprise. Without profits there is no production and no consumer goods to sustain and enrich us.
I couldn't agree more with your second point. But it's important to know that money was made into a weapon by the power of the state, which allows and facilitates the fractional reserve banking system, which amounts to the legal counterfeiting of money, enriching the elites and impoverishing the rest of us.
The CoronaPrank was the single event that had the "capitalists" steal the most public assets and rearrange the fabric of the financial community. capitalism is now run by Organized Crime Global Inc.
Sorry, it really is capitalism. Capitalism always leads to corruption, legal and illegal, thriving by catering to every human weakness and vice. It is also inherently incompatible with anything but delusional manipulated fake electoral democracy. (If voting could change anything, it would be outlawed.) If you can't see this unpleasant truth ever more clearly in current situation of the most capitalist nation/empire in history, you are even more braindead than those old Stalinists you seem to be referring to. Deep systemic corruption, economic, political, civic, cultural and spiritual; indefensible inequality; pervasive propaganda, chronic instability and constant war can be found in all human systems, but they are all built-in features of capitalism, not bugs.
Capitalism is NOT the problem! Power does NOT corrupt ,it ATTRACTS the corruptible The 2-4% of the human population that are basically sociopaths occupy most of the power positions in our society. We should vet these people and keep them away from all civil power structures!
Unlike the fairytale land free of all corruption like Soviet Russia. Or communist China, or communist wherever. Democracy is fake and ghey and only the truly useless really desire its implementation.
"Capitalism is not and never will be the problem."
Silly Libertarian. Capitalism as such never existed; Private Ownership, yes. But a capitalism of perfect competition under a free market, with no barriers to entry and (hardly) any state to speak of never existed at scale.
People understood this 120 years ago when TR ran as a "trust buster" against cartels and corporate monopolies that began in the 19th century and dominated every industry. Going forward, monopoly capitalism captured Big Government as enforcers leading to major breakdowns in the physical economy and the labor force.
I'm not remotely a lolbertarian, moron. Lolbertarians are dumber than communists, and more irritating. And the "no true Scotsman argument" is a ridiculous fallacy to espouse.
Corporations are creations and creatures of the State, not the other way around. you can't even get basic concepts right.
Silly nonsense. Capitalists invented corporations to attract capital investment and distribute the proceeds as dividends. Governments are the tools of private ownership.
Years of subterfuge & gaslighting in order to conceal Joe’s cognitive decline, which worsened irreversibly over time, led to a deep distrust of messaging hailing from the White House and the Democratic Party overall. Elaborate make-believe took its toll in brain-power and energy. Even the media broke under the subterfuge.
The presidency was really run by a Zord formed of Blinken, Sullivan and maybe Lloyd the 3rd. Zord Biden’s pet interests intersected enough in Project Ukraine that the Big 3 could move together in echelon without the need for too much tedious deconfliction. A primary concern for Zord Biden was making certain nobody caught wise to the fact that Joe was not actually running the show. The media didn’t matter, because they were already in-the-tank, paid propagandists no less. Failing to pretend successfully, and inadvertently revealing the extent to which Joe had declined, was always a danger, however.
Managing the private truth against the public lie must have been exhausting for Zord Biden, an additional dead-weight for the Zord to shoulder, but hey when you’re making an omelette you’ve got to crack some eggs.
>>
Old neocons, who rave at close of day,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Grave hegemons, near death, see with sundown sight
"Failing to pretend successfully, and inadvertently revealing the extent to which Joe had declined, was always a danger, however."
They never pulled it off. Everyone who paid attention knew that biden was a potato even before the elections. In the debates, biden had a catheter hooked up to his arm. Everyone who paid attention knew...
That talk of Borodai was chilling. I know this is odd, since I am a retired US infantryman. But my thoughts are with my Russian brothers in the field. Victory against the Nazi's and a quick return to your loved ones. I wish I was a praying man, but I can only extend my hopes.
Yes, indeed. I too, not much for “thoughts and prayers”; I get the just… sometimes I play with fanciful words. Something tells me…the sun will rise in the East. 💛🌅💛Not in my lifetime…yet my old bones tell me so.💙🇷🇺❤️🐈⬛
It's a very Russian talk. I'm an American living in Russia for years, and that's how leaders talk here. It isn't happy talk and propaganda for morons, just straight talk with the expectation the people you're talking to are adults who can handle reality. Putin is the same way when he does Q & A sessions with people - straight talk, the good and the bad, no sugar coating.
What's also interesting about that video is how here's a man who with his demeanor and his world view down to the marrow of his bones is Russian, contradicting Western propaganda for morons about the Donbass, where he's from, not being Russian. They are extremely Russian there and have been for a thousand years. That's because he's from the place where Russian language and Russianness was invented.
I loved this bit: ""Russia is not a country to be comfortable... Russia has its own mission... ...and this mission has nothing to do with comfort." Man, that is so quintessentially Russian. For all the many ways Russian love their comforts, a cozy evening around the dinner table with friends, the reason they do is because they don't take comfort for granted. They don't believe it is the default mode of the universe.
But with full respect to Borodai (which surname in Russian comes from the word "Boroda" or "beard"), I think he's showing a very Donetsk perspective as often comes out when people from Donbass spend time in Moscow. After ten years of fighting for their lives they arrive in a vast, infinitely wealthy metropolis where virtually everyone out of the nearly 20 million people who live there is unaware there's a war going on in Donbass. It just doesn't enter their consciousness, nothing to compare to the latest Muscovite news of a new Metro line opening up or some hot new fashion, some new way to make billions in arbitrage against the Central Bank rate and what you can get in bonds or savings accounts.
You can't blame him for worrying that maybe this is the year their struggle in Donbass gets forgotten. But it is precisely that the conflict in Ukraine is so easily handled by Russia that it hasn't dented the consciousness of Muscovites that means those whose job it is to handle such matters, such as the President, can continue to handle them with the support of the nation.
I also think he underestimates the vast power of the economy, again, because he is looking at it from a Donbass perspective where things have been pretty much smashed in the last ten years, especially after having started far behind given the corrupt stripping of assets in 1991 by a succession of looters in Kiev.
The Russian economy isn't booming by consuming the "fat" that's built up over the last 30 years. It's booming because the rest of the world desperately needs Russian resources, such as energy to remain competitive, food to avoid starvation and the trifecta combination of Russian energy, food, and other resources to maintain any hope of prosperity. That demand isn't going away in 2025. If anything, the steady rise in economic activity in the Global Majority, which Russia now trades with, indicates that demand will increase. Donbass hasn't yet seen how that works because Donbass is still a war zone and not participating in the immensely bigger Russian economy.
The other power source driving the Russian economy is expansion into niches that have opened up by the replacement of the West with Russian and Global Majority production. It's not just the simple expansion by Russian entrepreneurs into niches opened by the departure of Western companies. There's a much richer and more nuanced phenomenon going on.
For example, only a minority of Western companies left. But almost all of those which remained have, like the countries they come from, been weakened by their home country's economically suicidal moves, such as self-starvation by cutting off access to Russian energy. Those companies in the past were very strong competitors in Russia - Germany didn't get to be a world export power by having companies who didn't know how to compete effectively - but now that they're hobbled by too high costs they find themselves losing deals to Russian entrepreneurs.
The switch to the East also powers a lot of local activity. For example, when tens of thousands of automobile dealerships switched from EU, Korean and Japanese brands to Chinese car brands, the refitting of all those dealerships resulted in a huge amount of economic activity by local Russian businesses, a genuine kick upwards for the economy. Many, many new businesses, including many small and medium businesses, have opened up to take advantage of the turn to the East. Each such new business drives a lot of related economic activity. That reorientation to the East will continue at least for the next 20 or 30 years.
For those reasons, I respectfully disagree with Borodai that Russia has to win in 2025 or hit any economic or social barriers. Russia's perfectly capable of keeping the special op going at the low boil level where it's currently at, steadily defeating the US and its stooges in Ukraine, where they don't need masses of new manpower and where it doesn't really register on the national economy.
There is some risk of government people getting addicted to spending easy money because of the increased flows into military production that are not subject to market discipline, like how in the US all the stooges in Congress just love having sex under the table with the military industrial complex, but given all the spin off boosts to development the relatively modest increase in Russian military spending is achieving that seems to be to be a risk that both is worth taking and which can be managed.
Thanks John, your posts and insights are always tip-top. The Wizard of Oz is finally getting exposed. We can no longer be the brainless scarecrow or cowardly lion. We need to find and buttress our brain and heart. There is heavy lifting to be done before we come out the other side. The Russians are shouldering the burden, mostly, now. The same fascist forces that tore up the world and murdered twenty-seven million Soviet citizens during WW2 are back (never left) and standing naked in the cold light of day. (27,000,000 people!!!-fucking unreal-unimaginable)The Western pirates have dropped all pretense of fairness, honesty and civility. They MUST be stopped.
Wishing the best for the great Russian people and their stalwart president, Mr. Putin.
And thanks finally to Simplicius and the great contributors here. The truth is bracing and is critically important. Thanks all.
Have not read Grossman. I'm pledging to read more of the Stoics in 2025, they seem to offer practical advice on how to live in an insane world. All best to you and yours in the new year. May the fates favor us with the chance to experience 2026.
Nahh. Im trying to be understanding. Everyone knows that the German courts of the time mandated every homosexual to go to the Hirschfelds Sex Research Institute for psychiatric treatment. Which meant Hirschfelds SRI had confessions on the incredibly extensive homosexual network of your beloved Nazi party.
Which is the actual reason those boy raping faggots were "book burning". It wasnt the books they cared about, it was the extensive blackmail available in the records
But you knew that already you disgusting little Nazi you.
A bookseller friend of mine, years ago, confirmed what you noted. I don't remember the details but the "yellow brick road" was, in fact, about GOLD. The story was heavily laden with symbolism. A quick internet search would confirm the details of course. A classic book/movie like "OZ" of course can be hijacked to make points wherever it seems plausible. Thanks for pointing this out.
The losses that Russia sustained in The Great Patriotic war--unconceivable.
American public education touts "D-Day," and the "American Victory over NAZI Germany," yet hardly mentions the Eastern Front where most of the fighting and dying occurred.
The Russian people did the heavy lifting in WW2; Their losses cannot be forgotten.
"I also think he underestimates the vast power of the economy, ... The Russian economy isn't booming by consuming the "fat" that's built up over the last 30 years."
That is exactly where I started to disagree with him. In my opinion, Russia did not shed fat, it shed an unattainable vision and replaced it with a new, better, and most of all an attainable vision: No longer Russia aspires to become 'like the west', but -imo- Russia now wants to become Russian.
And that is not only attainable, it is -as I see it now- completely unavoidable. It won't be easy and it will take many more sacrifices, but it will be so worth it!
I wish the small countries in the West would do the same. Become themselves than reflections of the toxic trash psuedoculture promoted by Hollywood on behalf of the
I agree, however they have been subverted ever since the end of WW2 and have hardly any original culture left. So they will have to do a lot of rebuilding, and will probably never get back to their old form. But even a new one would likely be an improvement.
While I understand the slow approach Russia has taken, lets not overstate it either. Russia has had to divert a lot of its attention to the war in the Ukraine from other spheres of influence. This is why it lost some ground and influence in the South Caucasus, and now Syria. Moreover, having people in Moscow not feel too much or any pain from the war in Donbass makes sense but there is also a disconnect. Look at the video of people going to the Kremlin yesterday, thinking that there was going to be fireworks for the New Year eve celebrations.
If Russia is indeed fighting the collective west, trying to prevent nuclear escalation, and building a new economic-political global order, the policymakers in the Kremlin ought to communicate that more than they have been.
"This is why it lost some ground and influence in the South Caucasus,"
Where did Russia lose ground and influence in the South Caucasus? Looks like the opposite in Georgia, where what might have been a wobbly Georgian government is clearly determined to defeat US attempts at a second Maidan.
In Syria I think Russia made the decision to cut Assad loose. Russia got involved in Syria for some of the right reasons (wanting to fight Islamic radicalism, and then later to gain some combat experience for its air force), and for some of the wrong reasons (to have "influence" in the middle east and to play at being a great power in a region where they could directly oppose the US while appearing to be willing to "deconflict" with the US).
What Ukraine has taught Russia is not that it doesn't have the attention to walk and chew gum (prosecute the op in Ukraine while also being engaged in Syria) at the same time, but that it has better things to do (grow the Russian economy, develop ties with Africa, deepen OPEC ties, expand BRICs, pivot to Asia) than to screw around with tar pits. ISIS really was defeated in Syria, thanks to Russia's and Iran's help. But getting involved in the infinite ongoing hassle of trying to keep Assad alive despite every indication the man is a) not worth keeping alive and b) will actively screw up any attempts to keep him alive was clearly not in Russia's interests.
That's especially so since Russia doesn't need either of the two (one air force, one naval) bases it had in Syria. Parking aircraft in the desert doesn't buy it anything, and Russia is re-evaluating the value of a blue water navy in the face of new technology. It seems to have concluded that a submarine force and autonomous air power that can strike anywhere in the world make more sense than providing adversaries with a menu of floating, slow, easy to kill targets.
"Look at the video of people going to the Kremlin yesterday, thinking that there was going to be fireworks for the New Year eve celebrations."
People in Moscow go to Red Square for New Year's for the same reason New Yorkers go to Times Square for New Year's. It's a hugely social thing. I find it hard to believe that more than a handful of really clueless people weren't aware there would be no fireworks, as that's been going on for what? two years? now.
"If Russia is indeed fighting the collective west, trying to prevent nuclear escalation, and building a new economic-political global order, the policymakers in the Kremlin ought to communicate that more than they have been."
In what way beyond the very many effective ways they have been communicating that already? Russia has defeated the collective West economically: the EU has flatlined with the locomotive, Germany, in recession and leader after leader being ousted because of the economic pain Europeans feel. Biden was ousted in large part because Americans aren't happy with the Biden economy. Trump's lies about ending the Ukraine war in 24 hours were clearly an important part of his win.
Russia also militarily has defeated the collective West: it's killed billion dollar Patriot wonder weapons with $500 drones, it's wiped out Leopard and Abrams tanks and has revealed the UK's and France's tanks also to be easy to kill pigs. Despite hundreds of billions of dollars, mountains of weapons, 24/7 "back office" help from 100K US and NATO soldiers and the direct participation of soldiers and special forces teams from Poland, Romania, France, the US and the UK, Russia has beat those forces and the nazis to a pulp in town after town. The only way F-16s remain flying is by staying far away from Russian forces. The West knows it has been punched into a pulp in Ukraine. It's no accident they all talk big about sending their troops into Ukraine, but only after a cease fire.
The expansion of BRICS and the waitlist to get in, together with Trump's manic threat to impose 100% tariffs on 7/8 of the world's population if they dare stop using the dollar clearly have communicated to the US and its stooges that Russia is, indeed, building a new economic-political global order. When US allies like Japan, Saudi Arabia, and the most powerful army in NATO, Turkey, give the US the finger to keep trading with Russia that also communicates that things have, indeed, changed.
None of that is overstating what's going on. The world really is shifting. The West, "led" by the US, really is declining, and it's declining big time, with the East rising. The world knows the US challenged Russia in Ukraine and that the US has lost. Now everybody, including the US military, knows the US is in no shape to go to war against a far richer China.
But one of the biggest changes, not to be underestimated, is that Russia has shown it is a truly independent and sovereign nation. There is nothing, not economically, not militarily, and not diplomatically that the US and US stooges can do to force Russia to do the US's bidding. The rest of the world, the global majority of humanity, loves seeing that. It's the very first time in a very, very long time that a major power has stood up to the US and has not only defeated the US but has thrived doing that.
Russia lost influence in Armenia. A staunch ally (CSTO member) that had a western asset installed as prime minister in 2018. Since then Armenia has drifted away, and as a result of the war in the Ukraine, Russia probably deems it ill advised to annoy the turks and their client state of azerbaijan. Now turkey is back in the South Caucasus, for the first time in 100 years.
Russia seems to have issues keeping its client states on a short leash. Remember that Belarus almost had its own maidan in the summer of 2020.
We shall see what happens in Georgia. The current signs are good for Russia.
Per Syria, I mostly agree with you. Russia went in for legitimate reasons. But then decided not to expand. If it really wanted a footprint in the Near East, it probably should have worked closer with China and Iran to build up Syria, and if needed, get rid of Assad. Maybe they did try and for various reason it did not work out. Let us also not forget that Russia still has powerful zionist elements which work very hard to limit any Russian negative posture toward israel. But if Russia does not need military bases so far from it, why is Russia moving more and more of its equipment from Syria to Libya?
Yes, the eu economies are all doing poorly, but the masses continue to tolerate it. And the level of anti-Russian sentiments has not dropped significantly. That is not something Russia can do, just goes to show how powerful anglo-american-zionist agit-prop is and continues to be worldwide but especially in Europe.
Let's not give too much credit to BRICS+ At least two of the major members still have unresolved issues. I am of course referring to China and India. Moreover, applicant states like turkey are trojan horses, and they have every intention to milk any organization to their benefit. They will be the first ones to betray the Russians and BRICS, or eventually even the Europeans and nato. The saudis too are scum and can't be relied upon. They know that without American protection they are toast.
I do agree that the west is on a decline at the moment, especially the Europeans, but the idea that they will be down and out soon or very soon is false. You may not be saying that, but enough in the alt-media space are, and are doubling down on it that it's become quite annoying. Small example, recall that just a few months ago you had a number of talking heads claiming that israel was down, it was weak, and that the so-called Axis of Resistence had won. Nope.
The anglo-american-zionist order still has fight left in them and they still control the majority of the global power levers. Be that in finance, media, economics, popular culture, etc.
I despise it, but it is what it is, and one should be honest about the strengths and weaknesses of all sides. Including our own.
That link reports a lie from the nazi regime's deputy defense minister. Most reports from *Western* reporters embedded in the front line report Russia fires over 20 shells for every shell the nazis fire.
The US and its stooges have not fixed their manufacturing bottlenecks, but remain laughably far behind Russia's artillery shell manufacturing rate, not to mention the few million shells North Korea has paid Russia in a barter transaction for all the resource and food aid Russia has been sending North Korea.
Good post John. Interesting to hear you are an American in Russia. I wish you well there. One of my daughters are learning Russian here in Denmark, as I really don't trust the Danish state to avoid hell on earth. Though I still hope...
Best wishes to you too, and good luck to your daughter with her studies in Russian. That's definitely swimming against the current of political correctness in the West. :-)
On the plus side, when the pendulum in NATO states swings from self-delusion back to acknowledging reality, if by then there is anything of Denmark left she will be well-positioned for a successful career leveraging Russian resources for greater business competitiveness, more science, more culture, or whatever else it is that interests her as a primary career. She won't have as many competitors with a grasp of the language.
That reminds me of how during the 80's and 90's China was the enemy in the US and so few people in the US learned Mandarin (that it was difficult to learn didn't help). But those people who learned Mandarin really stood out in the decades that followed, when US production moved to China.
"Hell on earth" is a good way to phrase what might be coming Denmark's way. It was insanity for a defenseless country like Denmark to attack Russia thinking the US would be willing to have US cities vaporized to protect Denmark from the consequences. It's as if the Danish leadership never heard of Henry Kissinger's famous remark, "It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."
Kissinger said that as part of a complex sentence about overthrowing South Vietnamese figures after the US-sponsored assassination of an inconvenient South Vietnamese president, so whether he meant it to advise not doing something that would confirm what everybody already thought or whether he meant it to mean that wasn't the case and the US shouldn't make it so is a point of contention among Kissinger historians. Be that as it may, given Kissinger's context of the US killing the leaders of disposable US vassal states, it remains a useful phrase to keep in mind for Danish leaders.
Ah, no. Borodai is not a one dimensional speaker, and disagreeing with one part of his nuanced and sophisticated talk does not cancel the rest of it.
By the way, the full sentence was "For those reasons, I respectfully disagree with Borodai that Russia has to win in 2025 or hit any economic or social barriers."
If you try cancel the "for those reasons" part by snarking about the "long text" (in fact, short text, considering the complexity of the matters discussed) you deny yourself the benefit of learning from those reasons.
Not so chilling but realistic. Surprised Simplicius rated this speech as a must-see and listen for 2025. All Borodai says is that the economy looks bleak for Russia and that they need to win quickly. He emphasizes a “quick victory” and almost asks Putin for a wise decision. He is also critical of the 90% of the Russian people who cannot understand the seriousness of this war. So much for attriting 5D chess!
The difference with Zelensky’s speech is telling. An actor doing his show opposite a really worried former prime minister. A clown with zero compassion for all 1 million dead and injured stands against a person who shows with every glance how the population of Donbass has suffered.
I have been ridiculed for calling for a stronger and less reactive approach to the war. Borodai seems very informed about the losses inflicted on the Russian sides. It is clear that 2024 has been a very difficult and expensive year and that he really wants a quick conclusion even if it means full mobilization (which is of course too late now)
Kudos to Simplicius for seeming to have rethought what Russia should do, and should have done long ago.
Correct. And calling for a proactive approach by Russia, as well as more aggression is a sign that you are thinking for yourself, not going along with what the pro-Russian talking heads have been pushing for over 2 years now. The copium of these people is a major turnoff.
"Borodai seems very informed about the losses inflicted on the Russian sides."
How would you know? He didn't make any comment about Russian losses other than generic statements about respecting those who gave their lives, which nobody is happy about, not even if those are small losses.
Anybody who's lived in Donetsk and has been a prime minister of the Donetsk people's republic is informed on losses in Donbass. They've been fighting the nazis for ten years, most of that time on their own without Russian troops. That's been very, very hard for Donbass. Having nearly 15,000 of their people killed by nazi shelling before Russia intervened was also very hard, and having a few civilians killed every week since then is also hard.
Yes, all that is very hard for a guy like Borodai. But that does not in any way reflect the overall cost in losses to Russia, except, of course that because he's a decent man he's going to mourn those as well. It also doesn't reflect the hard calculus of war. Russia right now is losing about 1/20th of the casualties the nazis are, the rough number most people within Russia who are well connected estimate. That's no problem and an extremely successful war when you consider Russia is fighting a half a trillion dollars, or more, of US and US vassal investments and assistance.
But such a successful turn in 2024 doesn't mean people should relax, especially not in Donbass, or think that in 2025 every day will be a sunny day without a continuing background of a few civilians a day being killed by the nazis.
" It is clear that 2024 has been a very difficult and expensive year and that he really wants a quick conclusion even if it means full mobilization (which is of course too late now)"
"really wants?" Well sure, he'd like a quick conclusion, but not a quick defeat. But going beyond that to mind read beyond the literal words he said is neither sensible nor likely to be accurate given you know nothing about him as a person, you don't know the language he's speaking but are relying on a poor translation, you don't understand his culture or other influences on him, and you don't seem to be particularly informed on the relevant history that would also shape what he's likely thinking. Personally, I don't believe in mind reading at all even if you know all those factors. Best to go with what the guy says literally, and what he said was an analysis of various factors that are relevant, not specific predictions.
For example, it's always a "difficult year" if your home region is an active war zone. But if you compare 2024 to past years, 2024 was a year of huge gains even for Donetsk. The nazis were pushed out of easy artillery range of the capital for the first time in over ten years. That's huge. 2024 is also the year where Russia achieved battlefield dominance over nearly the entire zone of engagement, steadily pushing forward. It's also the year when the ratio of casualties definitively tipped strongly in Russia's favor. It hasn't even been a particularly expensive year for combat, as the very strong growth in Russia's economy has exceeded the amount of growth in funds directly expended in combat.
There's no need whatsoever for full mobilization (which is stupid in the extreme to suggest, as "full mobilization" means mobilizing 25 million men...) nor even an additional tiny mobilization as was done two years ago with a mere 300,000 men. Russia already has more than enough men in the zone of engagement and more than enough men backing them to move the war along exactly as Russia intends. Russia doesn't do pointless human wave assaults, it pounds the life out of nazi positions with artillery, FABs and drones, and those forces are already amply manned. Russia only sends in forces to storm enemy positions when those enemy positions are beaten up and then it sends in remarkably few forces, very small groups. That's the way to keep steadily moving forward while minimizing Russian casualties. Russia can do that all day long for decades.
Russia also doesn't even need full or even partial mobilization in preparation for any upcoming direct war with the US and NATO given that such a war will also be a long range engagement fought primarily with missiles and air assets, at least for a limited time before tactical and then strategic nukes start being used. Drafting 25 million men to have them sitting around in army bases somewhere waiting for something to do before they disappear in a flash of bright light and radiation is pointless.
I got the opposite read from Borodai, and I got that both from the (very poor) English subtitles which I read first and the original Russian, which I tracked down because it was clear the translation was poor: I think he wants a decisive win and decisive destruction of the nazi scum who he has been fighting for many years, and that what he does not want is a quick "end" that is no end. But he is very careful to phrase that within a strongly patriotic and loyal support for whatever the commander in chief decides to do. It's a good example of a loyal guy giving his opinion while making it clear he will fight to the death to make successful whatever his commander in chief orders.
While you can't say exactly because of the generality of language he uses, my take was that he is saying some additional mobilization would be necessary for a total defeat of the nazi regime, that is, taking all of Ukraine. I strongly disagree that would be necessary or realistic (there are only so many people you can pack into the relatively small area of the war before they start getting in the way of each other) to totally defeat the Kiev regime. That's because Kiev is already on the verge of tipping into mass failure.
However, I would agree that additional partial mobilization may be necessary to occupy all of Ukraine after the Kiev regime, and its armies, collapse. That's because Russia will need a lot of manpower to process all the nazis, whether military or civilian, who are captured alive in occupied Ukraine, whatever their fate may be as decided by Russia. (Hopefully, shipment to labor camps above the Arctic Circle for the rest of their lives.)
You don't want experienced combat troops doing that, but using newly mobilized troops would be OK for that, to free up experienced combat troops in case direct fighting with NATO in Moldova, Romania, Poland and the Baltics is required, that is, if there is anything left of NATO formations in those countries after Russian strikes in any opening phases of a much hotter, direct war with the US and NATO.
I thinks it you, who goes way beyond what I wrote. Mind reading?
I trust the FSB does correct subtitles so the message from Borodai hits home.
I did not mind read any of his words or the meaning. It is obvious for everyone including Simplicius that the situation is grim.
I should have been more careful about the ”full mobilization” but he was concerned about 90% of Russian seemingly indifferent to the War (my interpretation)
There is, however, something fishy when someone like me conclude what he said and the hefty reaction from you. Would you have reacted in the same way if Simplicius had written in details what he meant about:
” But only one address captured the real tension and anxiety of the times, that of ex-DPR Prime Minister Alexander Borodai.
I’d like to leave you with this more balanced reflection on the state of things. Though it may sound solemn, or even ominous, it is the only take which accounts for the true seriousness of the dangers lying ahead, and the momentous changes yet to come; if there’s only one address you listen to today, let it be this one”
What do you think Simplicius meant by that?
Moreover…you wrote that Russian losses are only 1/20 compared to Ukraine and that Russia, about methods on the battlefield: ”Russia can do that all day long for decades.”
If I would mind read you I would simply state it as wishful thinking.
Maybe yes….and I hope you are right — but maybe an announcement of MSM death might be premature….as V. V. Putin’s said on a different occasion, citing Mark Twain (The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated):
More than anything else, I declare year 2024 as the death of mainstream media.
I see things as 2024 being the watershed year when the Strong shows the weak that the Strong will always prevail over whining mealymouths.
Year 2025 will further cement the victory of the Empire over the weak disunited opposition.
Venezuela and Bolivia will fall.
Pootin will very likely die by mid year and Merde will choose surrender rather than join Pootin. Afterall, Russians have always seen themselves as white Europeans and thus, Atlanticists.
Israel has shown culling strong leaders produces wimpering submissive successors ala, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran.
2025 will see only China as last man standing. How much more can Xi turn the other cheek so China can continue to be the shopkeeper to the world?
Look deeper and deeper into the half cup and the swirling possibilities of the future become illuminated like never before. Suddenly you see the future laid out before your all seeing eye. Amazing, miraculous even. You could cash in with a market stall and some gypsy costume. Have you thought of a better psuedonym?
The hegemon’s favorite trick is to begin the historical record of some dust-up at the very precise moment an adversary retaliates against the hegemon’s *own* clandestine violence. Anyone the hegemon uses as a pawn ultimately gets destroyed. Establishing an effective state of deterrence does not exist w/ the hegemon; it disallows deterrence on the part of the adversary, just as it disallows an adversary’s red lines.
Israhells cull of Hezbollah leaders, like the pager attack, is a one time only affair. It will take time for Hezbollah to institute necessary security measures against a repeat. THEN we will see new leadership show itself.
In the meantime, you may continue your bombastic, ignorant prognostications.
I’m on Team Mearsheimer, re: the quotes S includes [above.]
A chronic voyeuristic relation to the world means that people watch geolocated war videos coming out of Gaza—genocide at the speed of TikTok—without the capacity to end the madness, and then forward the videos online, multiplying the existence of such imagery, making recipients who view the shared footage, who also do not have the capacity to end the madness, witnesses.
Living in a country that robustly enables genocide makes one an aloof observer, participating not by literally supplying the weapons of death, except indirectly by rendering to Caesar what is Caesar’s [our tax dollars], but by watching and then forwarding the video snippets we see to others. The people suffering genocidal assault become bit-actors in our social media psychodramas. Living in a country that is complicit in a genocide, that is enabling and extending it, leads to a desensitized civic life, a desensitized public life, a moral numbing.
Here's another Mearsheimerism: “When you remember that the U.S. is complicit in a genocide in Gaza, that tells you all you need to know about America’s respect for basic human life.”
Im sorry but your atitude is a big part of the problem. Stop blaming others for your own crimes. America has been constantly slaughtering hundreds of thousands of unarmed civilians none stop since WW2. Or didn't you realise it was America who dropped 2 nuclear bombs on civilians in Japan? Do you have any idea why Kim Jon Un needs a nuclear missile so much to defend his country? If you don't you need to find out what America did to those N. Korean civilians. Do you have any idea of the amount of evil war crimes committed in Vietnam, Cambodia & Laos by America & the amount of deaths & suffering its has caused? What about Iraq? Libya, Syria, Yugoslavia. All AIPACS fault are they? Do Americans not have an opinion? Is that what you're saying? Your opinion is the typical opinion. All this constant death & destruction we've caused isnt our fault. They told us to so it. Fking pathetic & cowardly.
Mearsheimer fails to put his finger on the cause of the current situation which is the acute contradictions within the capitalist system. The genocide of the 1930s and 40s arose from the ruling classes embracing fascism to save their system from the prospect of massive social and political upheaval ie revolution from below.
Holodomor is a hoax, literally. The source of this hoax is a book written in 1980s on Canadian money by two Ukrainian historians. Later, when archives were opened, those scientists realized that their book is wrong, but it's was too late - myth went into masses.
Was there a famine? Yes. Was it deliberate towards Ukrainians? Wrong, it was countrywide. Places like Kazakhstan suffered more than Ukraine, actually, in per capita sense.
Actual holocaust, my ass. You should be more careful with verbiage
Speaking atleast for myself, you have kept me sane for the last year. "So it isn't just me ?" I'm relieved to know that others feel the same way and see the same things. I hope you will be as productive in 2025 as you have been in 2024. It should be an interesting year for sure, better or worse. Happy New Year to you and an abundance of gratitude.
My desire to be well informed is at odds with my desire to remain sane . Read this recently and it pretty much sums it up. Reality isn't always pretty but fantasy will hurt worse in the long run.
The hegemon’s favorite trick is to begin the historical record of some dust-up at the very precise moment an adversary retaliates against the hegemon’s *own* clandestine violence. Anyone the hegemon uses as a pawn ultimately gets destroyed. Establishing an effective state of deterrence does not exist w/ the hegemon; it disallows deterrence on the part of the adversary, just as it disallows an adversary’s red lines.
Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzeziński, was the architect of the U.S.-funded & ginned up provocations in Afghanistan which led to the destabilizing of the Russia-friendly government—and then ultimately to the Soviet Union’s “full-scale brutal unprovoked aggression” there.
Not one to reach for a new playbook when the old one has served it, the hegemon naturally repeated the same in Ukraine, as we all know. Prepping China as we speak. To wit:
The U.S. has reported a cybersecurity breach into the Treasury Dept communications as a result of state-sponsored Chinese hackers. This follows a prior hack into AT & T early in December, which enabled a Chinese state-supported cyber-intrusion outfit known as Salt Typhoon to steal text messages from DJT and JD Vance—plus devices the Justice Dept had been monitoring for espionage. Beijing has consistently dismissed accusations of cybersecurity breaches from Washington.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry stated that the US uses hacking claims to vilify China and justify unilateral sanctions. “We urge the US to stop using cybersecurity issues to smear and vilify China and to cease imposing illicit unilateral sanctions,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning stated.
Like accusations of cable or pipeline sabotage or vague allegations of ‘election interference,’ and the unilateral economic sanctions which follow, the U.S. intensified such tactics against Russia as a prelude to the SMO. Impossible to verify as the hacks are, Permanent Washington frequently utilizes the *announcement* of the hacks as cover for later leaking, at the most beneficial time, damning content from the targeted devices.
Look for the WaPo to publish DJT and JD’s private text messages after 20 January, allegedly leaked by the nefarious hackers of Salt Typhoon.
Meanwhile, in spite of this serious security breach Janet “overcapacity” Yellen was able to scrounge up another $2.4bn for Project Ukraine. Whew. Dodged a bullet on that one.
After Wikileaks Vault 7 release it's hard to believe the US accusations of hacking by adversarial countries. The value of DJT/JDV communications would be nil. Quite useful for domestic adversaries though.
The colluding media ignored Vault 7 and Marble, though. Remember: if they don't report on it, or deem it credible, then it A] does not exist and B] even if it *does* exist it is not credible.
*We* believed Assange's reporting, because we do not operate in the colluding media's parallel 'reality.'
Recall the Trilateral Commission was founded by Rockefeller and Zbigniew Brzezinski—the latter being worth remembering particularly on a day of global mourning for Jimmy Carter’s death: Brzezinski was Carter’s National Security Advisor.
The death of former Satanic Phoenician Mega Trillionaire Rockefeller bought President Jimmy Carter at the age of 100, does not mark the end of an era.
Actually, his death is an exclamation point for the Satanic Phoenician Mega Trillionaire Rothschild consciously created disastrous US foreign policy of the last 45 years, especially with respect to the threat from CIA created Islamic extremism and the troubled relations with Russia.
Satanic Phoenician Mega Trillionaire Rockefeller bought Jimmy Carter’s reign set the stage for much of the current unrest and turmoil in west Asia and Ukraine. While it is true that Mr. Carter worked diligently after leaving Washington, DC to burnish his image as a humanitarian, his consciously destructive - of the West - Satanic Phoenician Mega Trillionaire policies towards Russia and Iran became festering sores on the American political body that linger, still suppurating, until today.
Indeed, because of his mad policies, we see that Satanic Phoenician Mega Trillionaire Rockefeller bought Kissinger, Brzezinski and Carter were bought to destroy the west using these insane policies as a Satanic Phoenician ploy to bring down the Anglo American Empire as they have brought down 73 previous Empires feeding off their decline and promoting the new, in this case the Chinese Century and it’s Totalitarian Political structures, Digital Identity, Social Credit Score, Central Bank Digital Currency, De-Banking, being brought online Worldwide for a United Nations, Luciferian, New World Order, One World Government.
All the best to you and your loved ones and to the fellow readers of this August Forum, may the Glory of God and the Prayers of the Saints guide us to what is Good and Holy.
2025 will be the first year of one helluva ride that will make the last 8 seem uneventful.
We're looking forward to political collapse, more war and slaughter, maybe economic catastrophe, possibly the demonstration of even more novel destructive weapons.
It's time to dig out my old 80s thrash metal records.
Anyways, I'm grateful for your commentary and analysis. I believe I found your work via the Saker.
Greetings from the Wyoming prairie. Warmest home-brew toasts to you and yours.
You’re in a great place to ride the year out. The mention of Saker…well, and the Big Open of your area….may 2025 bring an abundance of all good things your way❤️🐈⬛
Picture brunch @ Mar-a-Lago on New Year’s Day—Dima sitting down w/ DJT and Kekius Maximus.
lol, like
They are putting the MRNA covid vax in your food you need to
do this right now........... https://t.co/od4x0Ubjoq
Happy New Year, Simplicius. Thanks for all your hard work through 2024. Quite a year!
Have a blessed year.
Happy New Year to all!
"B said it best that 2025 saw a remarkable and precipitous decline of the West into tyranny and illiberalism." You mean 2024.
"2025 has taught us that the entire Western order must necessarily be taking direction from a centralized node of governance somewhere." Still 2024 here on the west coast Simplicius : )
The year is still young, smile. The way things are going....
Western capitalism is simply going through another systemic crisis which it has experienced many times before such as in the 1930s and 1970s. As the social and economic inequalities of capitalism intensify it will lead to greater social and political conflict. In that situation the ruling class always tries to clamp down on democratic rights as the thin veneer of the capitalist democracy is pared back to reveal the true nature of capitalism. The global economy is rapidly slowing down and the next recession will be much worse than anything since the 1970s. There is a danger that trumps trade war will cause a full blown economic depression like the smoot Hawley tariif act of 1930. In that case the capitalist system is going to resort to fascism which will accelerate the march towards world war 3.
Capitalism is not and never will be the problem. Only braindead commies believe otherwise.
And Smoot-Hawley didn't cause the Great Depression. You need to read more widely.
It's frustrating to see people blaming capitalism. I suspect that they misunderstand what capitalism is. The problem is corruption, not capitalism. The political system in the United States is built on bribery. The elites enjoy special privileges which are denied to ordinary people.
Power is corrupting. Accumulating economic power leads to controlling political power. Power requires more power. The human relations get twisted. Democracy is absolutely antthetical with capitalism. In capitalism you only get a very controlled political manifestations, because it is by and large an oligarchy/plutocracy, masquerading as "democracy".
So human nature needs a better political structure to function more equitable. thus, it is not capitalism, as it wasn't feudalism, or sclavagism per se.
The only political structure that would work, which is the one that I favor, is one in which every individual has the right to peacefully dissent from any scheme that they deem as immoral or improper. Your neighbors could not vote to force you to pay for something that you don't want.
Nope, that sort of libertarianism is the opposite of a workable solution. For the long run, as the only possible path out of this pyramid structure in which humanity has been forced is full democracy, with sortition as a means of electing representatives and full transparency of decission making.
I for a long time been a proponent of this system, but by happenstance I listend to a podcast of Nate Hagen in which he interviewed a scientist specialised in studying existential risks, Luke Kemp. Luke posited that structural causes need to be identified and fixed, and the biggest fixed is more democracy, and provides the example of using sortition in selecting the individuals to decide whether the first experimental atomic bomb to be detonating - given that at the time it was a fear that the whole atmosphere might catch fire (very small theorized possibility) and that Germany was in no way going to develop an atomic bomb... But people of power wanting more power decided instead, in great secret.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8E_x4Xe5Eak
Capitalism is Mammon Worship.
Money was created for UTILITY, but ended up a LETHAL WEAPON.
And what magical system prevents this, which is, by the way, a HUMAN failing.
Capitalists wish to earn profits. Profits are the only way to sustain a business enterprise. Without profits there is no production and no consumer goods to sustain and enrich us.
I couldn't agree more with your second point. But it's important to know that money was made into a weapon by the power of the state, which allows and facilitates the fractional reserve banking system, which amounts to the legal counterfeiting of money, enriching the elites and impoverishing the rest of us.
"Capitalists wish to earn profits."
(Too bad i have no emojis - IOW LAUGH OUT LOUD))
And they did!
The CoronaPrank was the single event that had the "capitalists" steal the most public assets and rearrange the fabric of the financial community. capitalism is now run by Organized Crime Global Inc.
Sorry, it really is capitalism. Capitalism always leads to corruption, legal and illegal, thriving by catering to every human weakness and vice. It is also inherently incompatible with anything but delusional manipulated fake electoral democracy. (If voting could change anything, it would be outlawed.) If you can't see this unpleasant truth ever more clearly in current situation of the most capitalist nation/empire in history, you are even more braindead than those old Stalinists you seem to be referring to. Deep systemic corruption, economic, political, civic, cultural and spiritual; indefensible inequality; pervasive propaganda, chronic instability and constant war can be found in all human systems, but they are all built-in features of capitalism, not bugs.
Capitalism is NOT the problem! Power does NOT corrupt ,it ATTRACTS the corruptible The 2-4% of the human population that are basically sociopaths occupy most of the power positions in our society. We should vet these people and keep them away from all civil power structures!
Unlike the fairytale land free of all corruption like Soviet Russia. Or communist China, or communist wherever. Democracy is fake and ghey and only the truly useless really desire its implementation.
"Capitalism is not and never will be the problem."
Silly Libertarian. Capitalism as such never existed; Private Ownership, yes. But a capitalism of perfect competition under a free market, with no barriers to entry and (hardly) any state to speak of never existed at scale.
People understood this 120 years ago when TR ran as a "trust buster" against cartels and corporate monopolies that began in the 19th century and dominated every industry. Going forward, monopoly capitalism captured Big Government as enforcers leading to major breakdowns in the physical economy and the labor force.
I'm not remotely a lolbertarian, moron. Lolbertarians are dumber than communists, and more irritating. And the "no true Scotsman argument" is a ridiculous fallacy to espouse.
Corporations are creations and creatures of the State, not the other way around. you can't even get basic concepts right.
Silly nonsense. Capitalists invented corporations to attract capital investment and distribute the proceeds as dividends. Governments are the tools of private ownership.
Corporations can only exist with the imprimatur of the state.
And what would be unsilly "nonsense"?
You're clearly too short for this ride.
DARPA's man Elon, warming greeted by the last assassination target.
Hurry up!
Thanks Captain Obvious. Good grief it's a simple typo. Get a life.
Years of subterfuge & gaslighting in order to conceal Joe’s cognitive decline, which worsened irreversibly over time, led to a deep distrust of messaging hailing from the White House and the Democratic Party overall. Elaborate make-believe took its toll in brain-power and energy. Even the media broke under the subterfuge.
The presidency was really run by a Zord formed of Blinken, Sullivan and maybe Lloyd the 3rd. Zord Biden’s pet interests intersected enough in Project Ukraine that the Big 3 could move together in echelon without the need for too much tedious deconfliction. A primary concern for Zord Biden was making certain nobody caught wise to the fact that Joe was not actually running the show. The media didn’t matter, because they were already in-the-tank, paid propagandists no less. Failing to pretend successfully, and inadvertently revealing the extent to which Joe had declined, was always a danger, however.
Managing the private truth against the public lie must have been exhausting for Zord Biden, an additional dead-weight for the Zord to shoulder, but hey when you’re making an omelette you’ve got to crack some eggs.
>>
Old neocons, who rave at close of day,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Grave hegemons, near death, see with sundown sight
And do not go gentle into that good night
"Failing to pretend successfully, and inadvertently revealing the extent to which Joe had declined, was always a danger, however."
They never pulled it off. Everyone who paid attention knew that biden was a potato even before the elections. In the debates, biden had a catheter hooked up to his arm. Everyone who paid attention knew...
It's simply the capitalist system going through another systemic crisis which happens every few decades.
"The presidency was really run by a Zord formed of Blinken, Sullivan and maybe Lloyd the 3rd".
Two words, "Jeffery Zients"... Chip
Run by the Jew. Same as trump.
Nazi faggot
The White House Chief of Staff; Zients had a smoothly rising career as a corporate fixer.
The CoS coordinates everything coming out of the White House, so Zients was literally the man running the country.
That talk of Borodai was chilling. I know this is odd, since I am a retired US infantryman. But my thoughts are with my Russian brothers in the field. Victory against the Nazi's and a quick return to your loved ones. I wish I was a praying man, but I can only extend my hopes.
I am American too but am also with the Russians in spirit. And plan to be with them in person next year with my Ukrainian wife (D.V.)
I share your sentiments, brother. I too am in solidarity with my Russian brothers-in-arms and wish an end to brother wars for all time.
Yes, indeed. I too, not much for “thoughts and prayers”; I get the just… sometimes I play with fanciful words. Something tells me…the sun will rise in the East. 💛🌅💛Not in my lifetime…yet my old bones tell me so.💙🇷🇺❤️🐈⬛
It's a very Russian talk. I'm an American living in Russia for years, and that's how leaders talk here. It isn't happy talk and propaganda for morons, just straight talk with the expectation the people you're talking to are adults who can handle reality. Putin is the same way when he does Q & A sessions with people - straight talk, the good and the bad, no sugar coating.
What's also interesting about that video is how here's a man who with his demeanor and his world view down to the marrow of his bones is Russian, contradicting Western propaganda for morons about the Donbass, where he's from, not being Russian. They are extremely Russian there and have been for a thousand years. That's because he's from the place where Russian language and Russianness was invented.
I loved this bit: ""Russia is not a country to be comfortable... Russia has its own mission... ...and this mission has nothing to do with comfort." Man, that is so quintessentially Russian. For all the many ways Russian love their comforts, a cozy evening around the dinner table with friends, the reason they do is because they don't take comfort for granted. They don't believe it is the default mode of the universe.
But with full respect to Borodai (which surname in Russian comes from the word "Boroda" or "beard"), I think he's showing a very Donetsk perspective as often comes out when people from Donbass spend time in Moscow. After ten years of fighting for their lives they arrive in a vast, infinitely wealthy metropolis where virtually everyone out of the nearly 20 million people who live there is unaware there's a war going on in Donbass. It just doesn't enter their consciousness, nothing to compare to the latest Muscovite news of a new Metro line opening up or some hot new fashion, some new way to make billions in arbitrage against the Central Bank rate and what you can get in bonds or savings accounts.
You can't blame him for worrying that maybe this is the year their struggle in Donbass gets forgotten. But it is precisely that the conflict in Ukraine is so easily handled by Russia that it hasn't dented the consciousness of Muscovites that means those whose job it is to handle such matters, such as the President, can continue to handle them with the support of the nation.
I also think he underestimates the vast power of the economy, again, because he is looking at it from a Donbass perspective where things have been pretty much smashed in the last ten years, especially after having started far behind given the corrupt stripping of assets in 1991 by a succession of looters in Kiev.
The Russian economy isn't booming by consuming the "fat" that's built up over the last 30 years. It's booming because the rest of the world desperately needs Russian resources, such as energy to remain competitive, food to avoid starvation and the trifecta combination of Russian energy, food, and other resources to maintain any hope of prosperity. That demand isn't going away in 2025. If anything, the steady rise in economic activity in the Global Majority, which Russia now trades with, indicates that demand will increase. Donbass hasn't yet seen how that works because Donbass is still a war zone and not participating in the immensely bigger Russian economy.
The other power source driving the Russian economy is expansion into niches that have opened up by the replacement of the West with Russian and Global Majority production. It's not just the simple expansion by Russian entrepreneurs into niches opened by the departure of Western companies. There's a much richer and more nuanced phenomenon going on.
For example, only a minority of Western companies left. But almost all of those which remained have, like the countries they come from, been weakened by their home country's economically suicidal moves, such as self-starvation by cutting off access to Russian energy. Those companies in the past were very strong competitors in Russia - Germany didn't get to be a world export power by having companies who didn't know how to compete effectively - but now that they're hobbled by too high costs they find themselves losing deals to Russian entrepreneurs.
The switch to the East also powers a lot of local activity. For example, when tens of thousands of automobile dealerships switched from EU, Korean and Japanese brands to Chinese car brands, the refitting of all those dealerships resulted in a huge amount of economic activity by local Russian businesses, a genuine kick upwards for the economy. Many, many new businesses, including many small and medium businesses, have opened up to take advantage of the turn to the East. Each such new business drives a lot of related economic activity. That reorientation to the East will continue at least for the next 20 or 30 years.
For those reasons, I respectfully disagree with Borodai that Russia has to win in 2025 or hit any economic or social barriers. Russia's perfectly capable of keeping the special op going at the low boil level where it's currently at, steadily defeating the US and its stooges in Ukraine, where they don't need masses of new manpower and where it doesn't really register on the national economy.
There is some risk of government people getting addicted to spending easy money because of the increased flows into military production that are not subject to market discipline, like how in the US all the stooges in Congress just love having sex under the table with the military industrial complex, but given all the spin off boosts to development the relatively modest increase in Russian military spending is achieving that seems to be to be a risk that both is worth taking and which can be managed.
Very nice. Thank you!
I always enjoy your posts, John. Keep em coming!
Thanks John, your posts and insights are always tip-top. The Wizard of Oz is finally getting exposed. We can no longer be the brainless scarecrow or cowardly lion. We need to find and buttress our brain and heart. There is heavy lifting to be done before we come out the other side. The Russians are shouldering the burden, mostly, now. The same fascist forces that tore up the world and murdered twenty-seven million Soviet citizens during WW2 are back (never left) and standing naked in the cold light of day. (27,000,000 people!!!-fucking unreal-unimaginable)The Western pirates have dropped all pretense of fairness, honesty and civility. They MUST be stopped.
Wishing the best for the great Russian people and their stalwart president, Mr. Putin.
And thanks finally to Simplicius and the great contributors here. The truth is bracing and is critically important. Thanks all.
Have not read Grossman. I'm pledging to read more of the Stoics in 2025, they seem to offer practical advice on how to live in an insane world. All best to you and yours in the new year. May the fates favor us with the chance to experience 2026.
That is idiotic. The Jew controls the west and the Jew hates Russia. The wiZrad of oz has a big nose and a small hat
You forgot to capitalize the "T" in the second "the Jew hates Russia". Its' got to be "The Jew hates Russia". Or even better "The JEW".
And try to put it in bold letters so you can see it more clearly when you and your boyfriend masturbate to it while eating a bag of cheetos.
Typical perverted Jew mind being exposed.
The good guys burned the books of Jew magnus hirschfeld.
Nahh. Im trying to be understanding. Everyone knows that the German courts of the time mandated every homosexual to go to the Hirschfelds Sex Research Institute for psychiatric treatment. Which meant Hirschfelds SRI had confessions on the incredibly extensive homosexual network of your beloved Nazi party.
Which is the actual reason those boy raping faggots were "book burning". It wasnt the books they cared about, it was the extensive blackmail available in the records
But you knew that already you disgusting little Nazi you.
Typical nazi faggot talk
Yea you nazi faggots are experts on all things idiotic
FWIW: in "Web of Debt", Ellen Brown explains "The Wizard of Oz" was written as a critique on American Capitalism.
A bookseller friend of mine, years ago, confirmed what you noted. I don't remember the details but the "yellow brick road" was, in fact, about GOLD. The story was heavily laden with symbolism. A quick internet search would confirm the details of course. A classic book/movie like "OZ" of course can be hijacked to make points wherever it seems plausible. Thanks for pointing this out.
The losses that Russia sustained in The Great Patriotic war--unconceivable.
American public education touts "D-Day," and the "American Victory over NAZI Germany," yet hardly mentions the Eastern Front where most of the fighting and dying occurred.
The Russian people did the heavy lifting in WW2; Their losses cannot be forgotten.
The pirates must be more than stopped, They must be destroyed. Completely and Permanently.
No more Paperclips and Gehlen Organisations!
"I also think he underestimates the vast power of the economy, ... The Russian economy isn't booming by consuming the "fat" that's built up over the last 30 years."
That is exactly where I started to disagree with him. In my opinion, Russia did not shed fat, it shed an unattainable vision and replaced it with a new, better, and most of all an attainable vision: No longer Russia aspires to become 'like the west', but -imo- Russia now wants to become Russian.
And that is not only attainable, it is -as I see it now- completely unavoidable. It won't be easy and it will take many more sacrifices, but it will be so worth it!
I wish the small countries in the West would do the same. Become themselves than reflections of the toxic trash psuedoculture promoted by Hollywood on behalf of the
Transhumanist Atlantic Mafia
I agree, however they have been subverted ever since the end of WW2 and have hardly any original culture left. So they will have to do a lot of rebuilding, and will probably never get back to their old form. But even a new one would likely be an improvement.
“Courage,” by a great Russian poet Anna Akhmatova
"We know what is weighed today on the scales,
And what is unfolding right now
The hour of courage has struck the clocks,
And courage will not desert us.
We have neither a fear of falling dead beneath bullets’ storm,
Nor a bitterness over loss of a home.
And we shall save you, our Russian speech,
The great Russian word-logos.
We shall carry you pure and unrestrained,
Liberated from chains for our children and theirs,
Forever.”
1942
That poem--straight from the heart is stunning.
Wow! Great insights and perspective. Carry on!
While I understand the slow approach Russia has taken, lets not overstate it either. Russia has had to divert a lot of its attention to the war in the Ukraine from other spheres of influence. This is why it lost some ground and influence in the South Caucasus, and now Syria. Moreover, having people in Moscow not feel too much or any pain from the war in Donbass makes sense but there is also a disconnect. Look at the video of people going to the Kremlin yesterday, thinking that there was going to be fireworks for the New Year eve celebrations.
If Russia is indeed fighting the collective west, trying to prevent nuclear escalation, and building a new economic-political global order, the policymakers in the Kremlin ought to communicate that more than they have been.
"This is why it lost some ground and influence in the South Caucasus,"
Where did Russia lose ground and influence in the South Caucasus? Looks like the opposite in Georgia, where what might have been a wobbly Georgian government is clearly determined to defeat US attempts at a second Maidan.
In Syria I think Russia made the decision to cut Assad loose. Russia got involved in Syria for some of the right reasons (wanting to fight Islamic radicalism, and then later to gain some combat experience for its air force), and for some of the wrong reasons (to have "influence" in the middle east and to play at being a great power in a region where they could directly oppose the US while appearing to be willing to "deconflict" with the US).
What Ukraine has taught Russia is not that it doesn't have the attention to walk and chew gum (prosecute the op in Ukraine while also being engaged in Syria) at the same time, but that it has better things to do (grow the Russian economy, develop ties with Africa, deepen OPEC ties, expand BRICs, pivot to Asia) than to screw around with tar pits. ISIS really was defeated in Syria, thanks to Russia's and Iran's help. But getting involved in the infinite ongoing hassle of trying to keep Assad alive despite every indication the man is a) not worth keeping alive and b) will actively screw up any attempts to keep him alive was clearly not in Russia's interests.
That's especially so since Russia doesn't need either of the two (one air force, one naval) bases it had in Syria. Parking aircraft in the desert doesn't buy it anything, and Russia is re-evaluating the value of a blue water navy in the face of new technology. It seems to have concluded that a submarine force and autonomous air power that can strike anywhere in the world make more sense than providing adversaries with a menu of floating, slow, easy to kill targets.
"Look at the video of people going to the Kremlin yesterday, thinking that there was going to be fireworks for the New Year eve celebrations."
People in Moscow go to Red Square for New Year's for the same reason New Yorkers go to Times Square for New Year's. It's a hugely social thing. I find it hard to believe that more than a handful of really clueless people weren't aware there would be no fireworks, as that's been going on for what? two years? now.
"If Russia is indeed fighting the collective west, trying to prevent nuclear escalation, and building a new economic-political global order, the policymakers in the Kremlin ought to communicate that more than they have been."
In what way beyond the very many effective ways they have been communicating that already? Russia has defeated the collective West economically: the EU has flatlined with the locomotive, Germany, in recession and leader after leader being ousted because of the economic pain Europeans feel. Biden was ousted in large part because Americans aren't happy with the Biden economy. Trump's lies about ending the Ukraine war in 24 hours were clearly an important part of his win.
Russia also militarily has defeated the collective West: it's killed billion dollar Patriot wonder weapons with $500 drones, it's wiped out Leopard and Abrams tanks and has revealed the UK's and France's tanks also to be easy to kill pigs. Despite hundreds of billions of dollars, mountains of weapons, 24/7 "back office" help from 100K US and NATO soldiers and the direct participation of soldiers and special forces teams from Poland, Romania, France, the US and the UK, Russia has beat those forces and the nazis to a pulp in town after town. The only way F-16s remain flying is by staying far away from Russian forces. The West knows it has been punched into a pulp in Ukraine. It's no accident they all talk big about sending their troops into Ukraine, but only after a cease fire.
The expansion of BRICS and the waitlist to get in, together with Trump's manic threat to impose 100% tariffs on 7/8 of the world's population if they dare stop using the dollar clearly have communicated to the US and its stooges that Russia is, indeed, building a new economic-political global order. When US allies like Japan, Saudi Arabia, and the most powerful army in NATO, Turkey, give the US the finger to keep trading with Russia that also communicates that things have, indeed, changed.
None of that is overstating what's going on. The world really is shifting. The West, "led" by the US, really is declining, and it's declining big time, with the East rising. The world knows the US challenged Russia in Ukraine and that the US has lost. Now everybody, including the US military, knows the US is in no shape to go to war against a far richer China.
But one of the biggest changes, not to be underestimated, is that Russia has shown it is a truly independent and sovereign nation. There is nothing, not economically, not militarily, and not diplomatically that the US and US stooges can do to force Russia to do the US's bidding. The rest of the world, the global majority of humanity, loves seeing that. It's the very first time in a very, very long time that a major power has stood up to the US and has not only defeated the US but has thrived doing that.
Thank you for your thoughtful reply.
Russia lost influence in Armenia. A staunch ally (CSTO member) that had a western asset installed as prime minister in 2018. Since then Armenia has drifted away, and as a result of the war in the Ukraine, Russia probably deems it ill advised to annoy the turks and their client state of azerbaijan. Now turkey is back in the South Caucasus, for the first time in 100 years.
Russia seems to have issues keeping its client states on a short leash. Remember that Belarus almost had its own maidan in the summer of 2020.
We shall see what happens in Georgia. The current signs are good for Russia.
Per Syria, I mostly agree with you. Russia went in for legitimate reasons. But then decided not to expand. If it really wanted a footprint in the Near East, it probably should have worked closer with China and Iran to build up Syria, and if needed, get rid of Assad. Maybe they did try and for various reason it did not work out. Let us also not forget that Russia still has powerful zionist elements which work very hard to limit any Russian negative posture toward israel. But if Russia does not need military bases so far from it, why is Russia moving more and more of its equipment from Syria to Libya?
Yes, the eu economies are all doing poorly, but the masses continue to tolerate it. And the level of anti-Russian sentiments has not dropped significantly. That is not something Russia can do, just goes to show how powerful anglo-american-zionist agit-prop is and continues to be worldwide but especially in Europe.
Let's not give too much credit to BRICS+ At least two of the major members still have unresolved issues. I am of course referring to China and India. Moreover, applicant states like turkey are trojan horses, and they have every intention to milk any organization to their benefit. They will be the first ones to betray the Russians and BRICS, or eventually even the Europeans and nato. The saudis too are scum and can't be relied upon. They know that without American protection they are toast.
I do agree that the west is on a decline at the moment, especially the Europeans, but the idea that they will be down and out soon or very soon is false. You may not be saying that, but enough in the alt-media space are, and are doubling down on it that it's become quite annoying. Small example, recall that just a few months ago you had a number of talking heads claiming that israel was down, it was weak, and that the so-called Axis of Resistence had won. Nope.
The anglo-american-zionist order still has fight left in them and they still control the majority of the global power levers. Be that in finance, media, economics, popular culture, etc.
I despise it, but it is what it is, and one should be honest about the strengths and weaknesses of all sides. Including our own.
One thing that worries me is that Ukraine is getting closer to parity in shells fired. https://thedefensepost.com/2024/10/02/ukraine-rate-russia-artillery/ . The west might have fixed their manufacturing bottlenecks, which makes a quick victory preferable.
That link reports a lie from the nazi regime's deputy defense minister. Most reports from *Western* reporters embedded in the front line report Russia fires over 20 shells for every shell the nazis fire.
The US and its stooges have not fixed their manufacturing bottlenecks, but remain laughably far behind Russia's artillery shell manufacturing rate, not to mention the few million shells North Korea has paid Russia in a barter transaction for all the resource and food aid Russia has been sending North Korea.
Good post John. Interesting to hear you are an American in Russia. I wish you well there. One of my daughters are learning Russian here in Denmark, as I really don't trust the Danish state to avoid hell on earth. Though I still hope...
Best wishes to you too, and good luck to your daughter with her studies in Russian. That's definitely swimming against the current of political correctness in the West. :-)
On the plus side, when the pendulum in NATO states swings from self-delusion back to acknowledging reality, if by then there is anything of Denmark left she will be well-positioned for a successful career leveraging Russian resources for greater business competitiveness, more science, more culture, or whatever else it is that interests her as a primary career. She won't have as many competitors with a grasp of the language.
That reminds me of how during the 80's and 90's China was the enemy in the US and so few people in the US learned Mandarin (that it was difficult to learn didn't help). But those people who learned Mandarin really stood out in the decades that followed, when US production moved to China.
"Hell on earth" is a good way to phrase what might be coming Denmark's way. It was insanity for a defenseless country like Denmark to attack Russia thinking the US would be willing to have US cities vaporized to protect Denmark from the consequences. It's as if the Danish leadership never heard of Henry Kissinger's famous remark, "It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."
Kissinger said that as part of a complex sentence about overthrowing South Vietnamese figures after the US-sponsored assassination of an inconvenient South Vietnamese president, so whether he meant it to advise not doing something that would confirm what everybody already thought or whether he meant it to mean that wasn't the case and the US shouldn't make it so is a point of contention among Kissinger historians. Be that as it may, given Kissinger's context of the US killing the leaders of disposable US vassal states, it remains a useful phrase to keep in mind for Danish leaders.
” I respectfully disagree with Borodai that Russia has to win in 2025 or hit any economic or social barriers.”
Ok. Long text about all that was seemingly good in the speech but this last sentence cancelled all of what Borodai meant.
"cancelled all of what Borodai meant."
Ah, no. Borodai is not a one dimensional speaker, and disagreeing with one part of his nuanced and sophisticated talk does not cancel the rest of it.
By the way, the full sentence was "For those reasons, I respectfully disagree with Borodai that Russia has to win in 2025 or hit any economic or social barriers."
If you try cancel the "for those reasons" part by snarking about the "long text" (in fact, short text, considering the complexity of the matters discussed) you deny yourself the benefit of learning from those reasons.
I am trying to learn more and especially from you with deep knowledge from Russia and various technical, political and economical fields.
My perception is that you belittled Borodai with the last sentence. Being the slightest critical of what happens in Russia is not your cup of tea.
And you havent answered my question about what Simplicius said about Borodai so I assume your are avoiding/negating certain aspects of the SMO/War.
"And you havent answered my question about what Simplicius said about Borodai"
What questions? Like "What do you think Simplicius meant by that?"
That's kind of a non-question, since what Simplicius meant by a well-written and clear paragraph is in the paragraph itself.
"so I assume your are avoiding/negating certain aspects of the SMO/War."
That's a strikingly narcissistic assumption. Did it ever occur to you someone might not be interested in educating you for free?
You negated all of what Simplicius said about the Borodai video. It was the cause of my question.
Not so chilling but realistic. Surprised Simplicius rated this speech as a must-see and listen for 2025. All Borodai says is that the economy looks bleak for Russia and that they need to win quickly. He emphasizes a “quick victory” and almost asks Putin for a wise decision. He is also critical of the 90% of the Russian people who cannot understand the seriousness of this war. So much for attriting 5D chess!
The difference with Zelensky’s speech is telling. An actor doing his show opposite a really worried former prime minister. A clown with zero compassion for all 1 million dead and injured stands against a person who shows with every glance how the population of Donbass has suffered.
I have been ridiculed for calling for a stronger and less reactive approach to the war. Borodai seems very informed about the losses inflicted on the Russian sides. It is clear that 2024 has been a very difficult and expensive year and that he really wants a quick conclusion even if it means full mobilization (which is of course too late now)
Kudos to Simplicius for seeming to have rethought what Russia should do, and should have done long ago.
Zelensky is a Jew who could care less how many goyim die - Ukrainian and Russian
You are just another nazi faggot and no one cares or wants to hear about your delusions
Correct. And calling for a proactive approach by Russia, as well as more aggression is a sign that you are thinking for yourself, not going along with what the pro-Russian talking heads have been pushing for over 2 years now. The copium of these people is a major turnoff.
"Borodai seems very informed about the losses inflicted on the Russian sides."
How would you know? He didn't make any comment about Russian losses other than generic statements about respecting those who gave their lives, which nobody is happy about, not even if those are small losses.
Anybody who's lived in Donetsk and has been a prime minister of the Donetsk people's republic is informed on losses in Donbass. They've been fighting the nazis for ten years, most of that time on their own without Russian troops. That's been very, very hard for Donbass. Having nearly 15,000 of their people killed by nazi shelling before Russia intervened was also very hard, and having a few civilians killed every week since then is also hard.
Yes, all that is very hard for a guy like Borodai. But that does not in any way reflect the overall cost in losses to Russia, except, of course that because he's a decent man he's going to mourn those as well. It also doesn't reflect the hard calculus of war. Russia right now is losing about 1/20th of the casualties the nazis are, the rough number most people within Russia who are well connected estimate. That's no problem and an extremely successful war when you consider Russia is fighting a half a trillion dollars, or more, of US and US vassal investments and assistance.
But such a successful turn in 2024 doesn't mean people should relax, especially not in Donbass, or think that in 2025 every day will be a sunny day without a continuing background of a few civilians a day being killed by the nazis.
" It is clear that 2024 has been a very difficult and expensive year and that he really wants a quick conclusion even if it means full mobilization (which is of course too late now)"
"really wants?" Well sure, he'd like a quick conclusion, but not a quick defeat. But going beyond that to mind read beyond the literal words he said is neither sensible nor likely to be accurate given you know nothing about him as a person, you don't know the language he's speaking but are relying on a poor translation, you don't understand his culture or other influences on him, and you don't seem to be particularly informed on the relevant history that would also shape what he's likely thinking. Personally, I don't believe in mind reading at all even if you know all those factors. Best to go with what the guy says literally, and what he said was an analysis of various factors that are relevant, not specific predictions.
For example, it's always a "difficult year" if your home region is an active war zone. But if you compare 2024 to past years, 2024 was a year of huge gains even for Donetsk. The nazis were pushed out of easy artillery range of the capital for the first time in over ten years. That's huge. 2024 is also the year where Russia achieved battlefield dominance over nearly the entire zone of engagement, steadily pushing forward. It's also the year when the ratio of casualties definitively tipped strongly in Russia's favor. It hasn't even been a particularly expensive year for combat, as the very strong growth in Russia's economy has exceeded the amount of growth in funds directly expended in combat.
There's no need whatsoever for full mobilization (which is stupid in the extreme to suggest, as "full mobilization" means mobilizing 25 million men...) nor even an additional tiny mobilization as was done two years ago with a mere 300,000 men. Russia already has more than enough men in the zone of engagement and more than enough men backing them to move the war along exactly as Russia intends. Russia doesn't do pointless human wave assaults, it pounds the life out of nazi positions with artillery, FABs and drones, and those forces are already amply manned. Russia only sends in forces to storm enemy positions when those enemy positions are beaten up and then it sends in remarkably few forces, very small groups. That's the way to keep steadily moving forward while minimizing Russian casualties. Russia can do that all day long for decades.
Russia also doesn't even need full or even partial mobilization in preparation for any upcoming direct war with the US and NATO given that such a war will also be a long range engagement fought primarily with missiles and air assets, at least for a limited time before tactical and then strategic nukes start being used. Drafting 25 million men to have them sitting around in army bases somewhere waiting for something to do before they disappear in a flash of bright light and radiation is pointless.
I got the opposite read from Borodai, and I got that both from the (very poor) English subtitles which I read first and the original Russian, which I tracked down because it was clear the translation was poor: I think he wants a decisive win and decisive destruction of the nazi scum who he has been fighting for many years, and that what he does not want is a quick "end" that is no end. But he is very careful to phrase that within a strongly patriotic and loyal support for whatever the commander in chief decides to do. It's a good example of a loyal guy giving his opinion while making it clear he will fight to the death to make successful whatever his commander in chief orders.
While you can't say exactly because of the generality of language he uses, my take was that he is saying some additional mobilization would be necessary for a total defeat of the nazi regime, that is, taking all of Ukraine. I strongly disagree that would be necessary or realistic (there are only so many people you can pack into the relatively small area of the war before they start getting in the way of each other) to totally defeat the Kiev regime. That's because Kiev is already on the verge of tipping into mass failure.
However, I would agree that additional partial mobilization may be necessary to occupy all of Ukraine after the Kiev regime, and its armies, collapse. That's because Russia will need a lot of manpower to process all the nazis, whether military or civilian, who are captured alive in occupied Ukraine, whatever their fate may be as decided by Russia. (Hopefully, shipment to labor camps above the Arctic Circle for the rest of their lives.)
You don't want experienced combat troops doing that, but using newly mobilized troops would be OK for that, to free up experienced combat troops in case direct fighting with NATO in Moldova, Romania, Poland and the Baltics is required, that is, if there is anything left of NATO formations in those countries after Russian strikes in any opening phases of a much hotter, direct war with the US and NATO.
I thinks it you, who goes way beyond what I wrote. Mind reading?
I trust the FSB does correct subtitles so the message from Borodai hits home.
I did not mind read any of his words or the meaning. It is obvious for everyone including Simplicius that the situation is grim.
I should have been more careful about the ”full mobilization” but he was concerned about 90% of Russian seemingly indifferent to the War (my interpretation)
There is, however, something fishy when someone like me conclude what he said and the hefty reaction from you. Would you have reacted in the same way if Simplicius had written in details what he meant about:
” But only one address captured the real tension and anxiety of the times, that of ex-DPR Prime Minister Alexander Borodai.
I’d like to leave you with this more balanced reflection on the state of things. Though it may sound solemn, or even ominous, it is the only take which accounts for the true seriousness of the dangers lying ahead, and the momentous changes yet to come; if there’s only one address you listen to today, let it be this one”
What do you think Simplicius meant by that?
Moreover…you wrote that Russian losses are only 1/20 compared to Ukraine and that Russia, about methods on the battlefield: ”Russia can do that all day long for decades.”
If I would mind read you I would simply state it as wishful thinking.
I'll say a prayer for you... Chip
Prayer to who ?
What about victory over the true evil - the Jew
Borodai is talking to adults ..
Happy new year simplicuis and to all of the readers. I sincerely wish you a happy and a wonderful new year!
Thank you for dropping a new year article!
Maybe yes….and I hope you are right — but maybe an announcement of MSM death might be premature….as V. V. Putin’s said on a different occasion, citing Mark Twain (The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated):
More than anything else, I declare year 2024 as the death of mainstream media.
Thank you for your great reports!
Well it's cup half full or half empty.
I see things as 2024 being the watershed year when the Strong shows the weak that the Strong will always prevail over whining mealymouths.
Year 2025 will further cement the victory of the Empire over the weak disunited opposition.
Venezuela and Bolivia will fall.
Pootin will very likely die by mid year and Merde will choose surrender rather than join Pootin. Afterall, Russians have always seen themselves as white Europeans and thus, Atlanticists.
Israel has shown culling strong leaders produces wimpering submissive successors ala, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran.
2025 will see only China as last man standing. How much more can Xi turn the other cheek so China can continue to be the shopkeeper to the world?
Look deeper and deeper into the half cup and the swirling possibilities of the future become illuminated like never before. Suddenly you see the future laid out before your all seeing eye. Amazing, miraculous even. You could cash in with a market stall and some gypsy costume. Have you thought of a better psuedonym?
The hegemon’s favorite trick is to begin the historical record of some dust-up at the very precise moment an adversary retaliates against the hegemon’s *own* clandestine violence. Anyone the hegemon uses as a pawn ultimately gets destroyed. Establishing an effective state of deterrence does not exist w/ the hegemon; it disallows deterrence on the part of the adversary, just as it disallows an adversary’s red lines.
Israhells cull of Hezbollah leaders, like the pager attack, is a one time only affair. It will take time for Hezbollah to institute necessary security measures against a repeat. THEN we will see new leadership show itself.
In the meantime, you may continue your bombastic, ignorant prognostications.
You should stop smoking the cheetos.
I’m on Team Mearsheimer, re: the quotes S includes [above.]
A chronic voyeuristic relation to the world means that people watch geolocated war videos coming out of Gaza—genocide at the speed of TikTok—without the capacity to end the madness, and then forward the videos online, multiplying the existence of such imagery, making recipients who view the shared footage, who also do not have the capacity to end the madness, witnesses.
Living in a country that robustly enables genocide makes one an aloof observer, participating not by literally supplying the weapons of death, except indirectly by rendering to Caesar what is Caesar’s [our tax dollars], but by watching and then forwarding the video snippets we see to others. The people suffering genocidal assault become bit-actors in our social media psychodramas. Living in a country that is complicit in a genocide, that is enabling and extending it, leads to a desensitized civic life, a desensitized public life, a moral numbing.
Here's another Mearsheimerism: “When you remember that the U.S. is complicit in a genocide in Gaza, that tells you all you need to know about America’s respect for basic human life.”
>>
as said to Judge Nap
Israel wouldn't even be around if it wasn't wanted by Anglo-American foreign policy - mostly Anglo - associated with WEF
Im sorry but your atitude is a big part of the problem. Stop blaming others for your own crimes. America has been constantly slaughtering hundreds of thousands of unarmed civilians none stop since WW2. Or didn't you realise it was America who dropped 2 nuclear bombs on civilians in Japan? Do you have any idea why Kim Jon Un needs a nuclear missile so much to defend his country? If you don't you need to find out what America did to those N. Korean civilians. Do you have any idea of the amount of evil war crimes committed in Vietnam, Cambodia & Laos by America & the amount of deaths & suffering its has caused? What about Iraq? Libya, Syria, Yugoslavia. All AIPACS fault are they? Do Americans not have an opinion? Is that what you're saying? Your opinion is the typical opinion. All this constant death & destruction we've caused isnt our fault. They told us to so it. Fking pathetic & cowardly.
Nuclear bombs dropped by ZOG in a zog war
Yes. AIPAC as a vehicle for the Jew.
You're still angry that Jeffery wouldn't let you on his island
Gazans were getting shredded, dismembered and burnt alive before SocMed, as were other Palestinians.
Mearsheimer fails to put his finger on the cause of the current situation which is the acute contradictions within the capitalist system. The genocide of the 1930s and 40s arose from the ruling classes embracing fascism to save their system from the prospect of massive social and political upheaval ie revolution from below.
What genocide in the 30s and 40s ?
That would be the Holodomor, which was the actual holocaust of the mid-20th century.
True. Committed by the Jew kagonavich an ancestor of the katana who are responsible for ke for more Ukrainian deaths to this day.
Holodomor is a hoax, literally. The source of this hoax is a book written in 1980s on Canadian money by two Ukrainian historians. Later, when archives were opened, those scientists realized that their book is wrong, but it's was too late - myth went into masses.
Was there a famine? Yes. Was it deliberate towards Ukrainians? Wrong, it was countrywide. Places like Kazakhstan suffered more than Ukraine, actually, in per capita sense.
Actual holocaust, my ass. You should be more careful with verbiage
The 6 trillion Jew holohoax is the big hoax. It ls not illegal to question and investigate the holodomore only the Jew big lie.
Both are fake and gay.
That's pure fantasy invented by the west.
Speaking atleast for myself, you have kept me sane for the last year. "So it isn't just me ?" I'm relieved to know that others feel the same way and see the same things. I hope you will be as productive in 2025 as you have been in 2024. It should be an interesting year for sure, better or worse. Happy New Year to you and an abundance of gratitude.
Kindness, Charlie M. All the best in 2025❤️
Agree! Simplicius and most of you people here have made 2024 bearable. All best!
My desire to be well informed is at odds with my desire to remain sane . Read this recently and it pretty much sums it up. Reality isn't always pretty but fantasy will hurt worse in the long run.
Yes, Happy 2025!! Find the silver lining within the cloud.
Not all clouds have silver linings -- think of mushroom ones.
The hegemon’s favorite trick is to begin the historical record of some dust-up at the very precise moment an adversary retaliates against the hegemon’s *own* clandestine violence. Anyone the hegemon uses as a pawn ultimately gets destroyed. Establishing an effective state of deterrence does not exist w/ the hegemon; it disallows deterrence on the part of the adversary, just as it disallows an adversary’s red lines.
Jimmy Carter’s National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzeziński, was the architect of the U.S.-funded & ginned up provocations in Afghanistan which led to the destabilizing of the Russia-friendly government—and then ultimately to the Soviet Union’s “full-scale brutal unprovoked aggression” there.
Not one to reach for a new playbook when the old one has served it, the hegemon naturally repeated the same in Ukraine, as we all know. Prepping China as we speak. To wit:
The U.S. has reported a cybersecurity breach into the Treasury Dept communications as a result of state-sponsored Chinese hackers. This follows a prior hack into AT & T early in December, which enabled a Chinese state-supported cyber-intrusion outfit known as Salt Typhoon to steal text messages from DJT and JD Vance—plus devices the Justice Dept had been monitoring for espionage. Beijing has consistently dismissed accusations of cybersecurity breaches from Washington.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry stated that the US uses hacking claims to vilify China and justify unilateral sanctions. “We urge the US to stop using cybersecurity issues to smear and vilify China and to cease imposing illicit unilateral sanctions,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning stated.
Like accusations of cable or pipeline sabotage or vague allegations of ‘election interference,’ and the unilateral economic sanctions which follow, the U.S. intensified such tactics against Russia as a prelude to the SMO. Impossible to verify as the hacks are, Permanent Washington frequently utilizes the *announcement* of the hacks as cover for later leaking, at the most beneficial time, damning content from the targeted devices.
Look for the WaPo to publish DJT and JD’s private text messages after 20 January, allegedly leaked by the nefarious hackers of Salt Typhoon.
Meanwhile, in spite of this serious security breach Janet “overcapacity” Yellen was able to scrounge up another $2.4bn for Project Ukraine. Whew. Dodged a bullet on that one.
After Wikileaks Vault 7 release it's hard to believe the US accusations of hacking by adversarial countries. The value of DJT/JDV communications would be nil. Quite useful for domestic adversaries though.
The colluding media ignored Vault 7 and Marble, though. Remember: if they don't report on it, or deem it credible, then it A] does not exist and B] even if it *does* exist it is not credible.
*We* believed Assange's reporting, because we do not operate in the colluding media's parallel 'reality.'
Recall the Trilateral Commission was founded by Rockefeller and Zbigniew Brzezinski—the latter being worth remembering particularly on a day of global mourning for Jimmy Carter’s death: Brzezinski was Carter’s National Security Advisor.
The death of former Satanic Phoenician Mega Trillionaire Rockefeller bought President Jimmy Carter at the age of 100, does not mark the end of an era.
Actually, his death is an exclamation point for the Satanic Phoenician Mega Trillionaire Rothschild consciously created disastrous US foreign policy of the last 45 years, especially with respect to the threat from CIA created Islamic extremism and the troubled relations with Russia.
Satanic Phoenician Mega Trillionaire Rockefeller bought Jimmy Carter’s reign set the stage for much of the current unrest and turmoil in west Asia and Ukraine. While it is true that Mr. Carter worked diligently after leaving Washington, DC to burnish his image as a humanitarian, his consciously destructive - of the West - Satanic Phoenician Mega Trillionaire policies towards Russia and Iran became festering sores on the American political body that linger, still suppurating, until today.
Indeed, because of his mad policies, we see that Satanic Phoenician Mega Trillionaire Rockefeller bought Kissinger, Brzezinski and Carter were bought to destroy the west using these insane policies as a Satanic Phoenician ploy to bring down the Anglo American Empire as they have brought down 73 previous Empires feeding off their decline and promoting the new, in this case the Chinese Century and it’s Totalitarian Political structures, Digital Identity, Social Credit Score, Central Bank Digital Currency, De-Banking, being brought online Worldwide for a United Nations, Luciferian, New World Order, One World Government.
https://satchidanand.substack.com/p/revealed-the-president-carter-secret-f51
No one is going to visit your stack to read your retarded delusions.
Hello Simplicius,
All the best to you and your loved ones and to the fellow readers of this August Forum, may the Glory of God and the Prayers of the Saints guide us to what is Good and Holy.
2025 will be the first year of one helluva ride that will make the last 8 seem uneventful.
We're looking forward to political collapse, more war and slaughter, maybe economic catastrophe, possibly the demonstration of even more novel destructive weapons.
It's time to dig out my old 80s thrash metal records.
Anyways, I'm grateful for your commentary and analysis. I believe I found your work via the Saker.
Greetings from the Wyoming prairie. Warmest home-brew toasts to you and yours.
Best Regards.
You’re in a great place to ride the year out. The mention of Saker…well, and the Big Open of your area….may 2025 bring an abundance of all good things your way❤️🐈⬛
Three different 5 gallon batches in various states of fermentation. Two already bottled with the third still in primary fermenter. Cheers! Chip
Peaceful and happy New Year to all.