Orban’s visit to Moscow set the European political seraglio aflame this week. The histrionic theatrics were on full performative display as the chorus of captured crones and cucks crowed in limp futility: For his part, Orban conveyed that Putin is a totally rational negotiator:
Nothing personal, and no hard feelings, but I suggest you beware of the media gas light: things can seem sooo enchanting….
On April 9th, 1775, approximately 14,000 local "goat herders" converged on the road from Boston to Concord (Massachusetts Colony) to contest their opposition's version of Operation Redwing. Similar results were accomplished.
"…And they are Xtremely Ethical"
Regarding those mercs in 404: at some time in our lives, we are all presented with our own, personal "My Lai" moment, wherein we get to decide as an individual whether or not to stray from the middle of the Ethical Road (and into the muck in the ditch on either side of the road). Part and parcel to "exceptionalism" is that the Ethical Road is irrelevant. (Hence, My Lai becomes the norm).
Nonetheless, your contrast is apposite: be advised that the Russian Federation has established ongoing efforts to identify and bring to justice, any and all perpetrators. Although some arrest warrants have been issued to date, it will take some years to work the process to the point where the typical 'murican "volunteer" has outstanding warrants. (It'll be interesting to see the language in the eventual peace/security treaty(ies) regarding execution of arrest warrants and judicial venue.)
"The Red wing I meant was the one where Marcus Luttrell survived. They made a movie about it ('Lone Star', I think)."
It was "Lone Survivor." Luttrell "wrote" the book, and then it was movietized; now on DVD at Amazon et al.
Should you view the special features accompanying the movie on the DVD, you'll come across the story of how the movie producers had the actors trained to portray Navy Seals. Essentially, the producers brought in retired Seals to train the actors in basic infantry/combat skills, in order to provide realism. I recognized one of those trainers as someone I trained with some thirty years ago in the high desert of Arizona.
"I believe the Russians are irreproachable…"
Again, nothing personal, and no hard feelings, but the Russians are just people; nothing more and nothing less; and having the same foibles as anyone else. That they, as a nation, are attempting to stay in the middle of the Ethical Road with their international relations is certainly to their credit. However, it remains to be seen how they acquit themselves as the future unfolds: the war against them is intensifying and will continue to do so until the Hegemon expires. At that point it will be their turn to decide whether or not to be "exceptional."
True but this has been the case always. Printing Press, Radio, Television, Internet all only increased this. America is just worse because isolated from actual reality. Plus urbanization.
They're burning current troops on the front lines to buy time for the fresh ones to train and accumulate for an assault. Because that is what their masters demand from them. But it's quite ineffective and in the end they get inexperienced semi-trained quasi-soldiers who don't change anything.
Of course not, I am basing my calculations on certain cycles and my estimates of the large systems inertia. It might end sooner if NATO graciously dismantles itself, but I find it unlikely. Only Soviet Union had enough conscience to just withdraw.
Why do Russians need to care about western popular opinions that have been shaped by mass media? The msm is owned by zionists and controlled by the dishonorable MIC and thuggish security (“intelligence”) services. Time for Russia to pursue her interests by adhering to the legal principles. Self determination is a powerful factor.
He has plenty of reasons. The Russian oligarchs, the leftovers of the Yeltsin administration, and all the state officials with family links to the West are pressing Putin to accept almost any capitulation to be back in good graces with Western Partners and get Yachts back. Did you even read that first peace proposal? Was basically a surrender. The Europhiles won that round.
On the other side you have handcuffed General staff and public who want it all. All Russian areas, all war criminals executed, and small, rump Western state, full of Nazi strangled to death.
I think it was Michael Hudson in a recent Dialogue Works YouTube video who explained that the US put sanctions on the Russian Oligarchy. That had been Putin's primary goal after becoming the President of Russia. The USA cut the balls off of his biggest problem!
With the Oligarchy gone, Putin is now free to reorganize his nation in a way that serves all Russians, not just the Oligarchs who were installed by the USA "advisors" after the fall of the USSR which nearly destroyed the Russian Federation.
Putin is going to go down in history as the "Father of Modern Russia". He is chairing the BRICS summit this month in Kazan. There are efforts from different sides to combine the BRICS, SCO, EAEA, and SCTO into a "UN for everyone but the West".
Putin will be known as the greatest statesman since Caesar having been responsible for the destruction of the American Empire.
On the other hand, neocons like Kagan, Blinken, Sullivan and the rest of the Zionists running the American government are too stupid to understand that if you keep beating people up, eventually they will pull a "Nat Turner" on you. In other words:
Hopeium IMO. Putin still meets with Oligarchs twice a year in a secret dinner like a Russian Davos. Putin used Russian UK/Israeli oligarch Roman Abramovich
for Avov prisoner swap and he's one of Putin's trusted advisors and personnel freind. Putin still sells everything he can to West not wanting to upset Oligarchs.
We'll knw soon enough based on how conciliatory Putin is to West/Ukraine if nationalists or globalist oligarchs won Putin over. Ukraine Army can't survive much past 2025.
Roman Abramovich may be rich, but is he a Russian Patriot or a crook.
George Soros is an Israeli agent. Just exactly what is Warren Buffet?
You remind me of the idiot that posted an article claiming that the Chinese economy was falling apart because of the Evergrande crisis when I corrected him and explained China was putting its Financial Fraud Crooks in jail; taking their money; and giving back to those who had been defrauded. (Unlike what Obama did in 2008)
He had only read the headline and insisted China was "Doomed, Doomed I tell ya". China is STILL going to grow its economy more than 5% this year, something they've been doing for 40 years now.
China even executes those billionaires guilty of gross financial fraud, unlike (for example) how Michael Milken spent a few years in jail and is STILL a billionaire
Russians have great respect for Putin and your BS claim that he's a figurehead or a puppet of the Russian Oligarchy is crap, especially in light of the US Oligarchy control over that tottering fool Joe Biden.
It's like, "WOW" you found a pot hole on some backwater street in a no-name town so you make a post that all the roads in that town are full of potholes.
My sources are Russians or people in RUssia like John Helmer. You might want to spend some time here informing yourself than slobbering all over Putin cock. The let down will be easier to cope with when Putin bitches out to please his Oligarchs and Europhiles.
The meeting of Obama in the back seat of Hank Paulson's limo was quickly erased from the internet.
Obama moved from chain-smoking mediocrity into the Black American Savior (Hope and Change) as soon as the Dual Citizen Money (stolen from Middle Class America) ramped up his campaign.
Yes, reports of China's demise are always a bit premature, ... like every quarter. Gotta keep churning those retail buyers/sellers of Chinese stocks on the US markets.
read the globaltreasurer 'deep dive' and didn't find it very deep. I think the 'depth' is in the fact that housing was (is?) the place for the chinese to put their wealth in the absence of stock market prospects. I think no mention of that? but fundamental to the 1.4 billion.
Putin appears to maintain a steady hand and meeting the Oligarchs is a smart move. No chance Putin is going to lessen his gifted American mistake of weakening Russian Oligarchs, and the Russian People despising these Dual Citizens of Russia.
Putin and the rest of Russia need only to look to the USA and Europe to see the Divide and Conquer destruction instigated by these deceivers.
A good rule of thumb seems to be that even if something Putin is doing appears to be stupid, it will later turn out that it was done that way for a reason, and it worked pretty well. Examples abound - look what Putin is doing!! He's selling out!! He'll destroy Russia!! Oh, wait - per-capita GDP adjusted for PPP actually went up. Again. Never mind that - look what the fool is doing now!! Is he crazy???
Putin could never carry out enough rug-pulling to make a despairing Mark 'Gerasimov Doctrine' Galeotti moan in agony that he has 'the luck of the devil' unassisted, and much of his success is due to good advice from loyal aides and professionals. But it takes a good leader to know who to listen to and which courses of action have the best chance of success.
"the US put sanctions on the Russian Oligarchy. That had been Putin's primary goal after becoming the President of Russia. The USA cut the balls off of his biggest problem!"
pResident Biden agrees that your thoughts are "gooder"
I like these opinions of yours. I note the 'other side' that doesn't agree with them is strong on the contention that Putin is dancing to the tune of the oligarchs. Rurik Skywalker for instance insisting the whole thing is merely a plot to balkanise Russia so's the international oligarchs can eat it up.
I really have no idea what the international oligarch scene is like and I wish I did.
I know of no literature that can/will tell me.
Seems to me that history has always been the history of oligarchs because what else are 'royal families' ?
So when I think of that I imagine them girdling the earth and mixing a mingling here and there and constantly engaging in machiavellian schemes to down each other. Loose alliances and pacts here there and everywhere.
And it seems the whole western financial system has been set up by them.
Meaning they have created our whole world.
So: that brings me to where I can't see how Putin has anything else to work with but them.
Like that is his material by default.
You can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear.
He only has sow's ears to work with.
That's the background upon which he works, his environment, his material.
Hence these critics finding connections between him and oligarchs and connections internationally between the oligarchs seem to me to be being a little naive and presumptuous: presuming he could create a reality suddenly devoid of all that.
However talking of naive I have to admit I am unschooled and without experience or connections so I may be the most naive of all.
If you know of any literature please tell.
But I like, prefer your view to these others in these columns. :)
You wanted "literature", there are a bunch of YouTube videos at the bottom of this post. The individuals who make the videos also have lots and lots of literature.
There is a plot to balkanize Russia. That is why the Ukraine war is being fought.
When the cold war ended and the US promised that NATO would not expand "1 inch East", the USSR started to break up. Gorbachov naively thought peace was on the horizon. He invited American experts, like Jeffrey Sachs, to come to the USSR and help it recover its economy. Well, American Oligarchs, who finance the "Deep State" [Good] sent "operatives" who convinced Boris Yeltsin that Russia would be better off without the dregs of the USSR hanging on, so the USSR broke up. Yeltsin was a drunk who was susceptible to flattery. The "operatives" (there are so many different organizations and people with so many different agendas it is impossible to identify them individually, but if you know about the "Carpetbaggers" who stormed the South after the Civil War to "seek their fortune", these "operatives" are similar except that today they have evolved and are generally financed by rich American billionaires. John Perkins book, "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" provides a perspective of what these "operatives" were 30 years ago.
You might want to look at how Ukraine is financing its war by selling off its assets to Blackrock. Can you see why Blackrock might want to keep this war going?
Aaron Good (see link below) has a long youTube series "Empire and the Deep State" which starts with the history of Samuel Zemurray, "Sam the banana man" in the '30s and how he used thuggery and "Mission Impossible" intrigue to establish United Fruit in Honduras (which is why they are called "Banana Republics"). In later videos he talks about the Rockefeller family and their involvement with the 1964 massacre in Indonesia.
The important point is to recognize that many of these "operatives" are neo-criminals or even actual criminals who have been organizing and reorganizing since America's founding (Aaron Good). All the crime movies you've ever watched show how the "Organization" became tighter and tighter over decades. I think HBOs "Boardwalk Empire", "Lansky" staring Harvey Keitel and, of course, "The Godfather" explore this best. There are "inside guys" and "outside guys". The movies don't show the criminal interaction with government agencies, but look up how the FBI ensured there would be no German spies on the East Coast during WWII.
Back to the USSR breakup, the "operatives" convinced Yeltsin that the pathway to a happy economy was privatization. This led to the rise of the Russian Oligarchy. The Oligarchy ran the country not elected officials. (Just like in the USA today. Think of the articles about the "Democratic donor class" panicking over Biden's obvious dementia.) The Russian Oligarchs decided they needed a new puppet and figured that Putin being former KGB would work out well for them. Putin came to power in 1999 and had to "play footsie" with the Oligarchy, but used the time wisely to consolidate alliances with patriotic Russians. He was able to make a deal with the Oligarchs that he wouldn't bother them if they didn't bother him. Like the American Oligarchy (Tony Blinken is an excellent representative of the group. He also perfectly matches the stereotypical Jew Shylock. PLEASE I am NOT saying this is true of all Jews. Norm Finkelstein and Aaron Mate certainly do not display that stereotype) the Russian Oligarchy thought that money was the only thing that motivated anyone. They were too stupid and ignorant to understand Putin's patriotism and love for Russia. [Scott Ritter] Their ignorance is on display every time they accuse Putin of being "pure evil". It is because they themselves are evil. Hudson explains how this ignorance of the American Oligarchy led them to believe that they could harm Russia by sanctioning the Russian criminal Oligarchy.
I need to explain that being rich doesn't necessarily make you a member of the Oligarchy. JFK was murdered because he was opposing the American Oligarchy. [Good]
The American neocons want to rule the world. Do you recall the Project for a New American Century? Rather than use the peace dividend for "peace", the US ventured off on lost war after lost war after lost war. Look up Robert Kagan and his wife Victoria Nuland. They lobbied and acted on continued provocations against Russia. Nuland was responsible for the 2014 Maidan coup. I hate to point this out but they are both Jews. Some will chastise me for this and insist they are Zionists, but I cannot imagine they pursue American Hegemony for the benefit of Israel. Zemurray also was a Jew. Murder Incorporated was a Jewish crime organization. I keep trying to come up with a label that will identify this kind of violent, greedy Jew and separate him from honest hardworking and absolutely brilliant Jews like Albert Einstein. Maybe I should coin "Bibis" after the Gaza genocide architect? Maybe AIPACians? (IMO, AIPAC uses Israel as a front to cover their funding of criminal activities -- Much like Tony Sopranos "waste management business".)
These criminal Oligarchy kept insisting that NATO continue to expand east. Putin begged them to not do this. Then Bush and Trump said they would no longer abide by several nuclear weapons treaties. Putin said over and over and over again, "If you keep coming east, Russia has to assume you are planning on invading our nation. We will respond". Given what happened after the breakup of the USSR, he has every reason to be wary.
The members of the Oligarchy are all at least tainted by crime if not actually neck deep in it. Consider the source of wealth of Barak Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden. For those who think I'm picking on Democrats, do recall the role played by Neil Bush in the collapse of the Silverado Savings and Loan during the S&L crisis. Wolff explains that the US economy is manipulated so that there is a recession every 4 to 7 years. The MSM (owned by the Oligarchy, for instance Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post) will insist there are events beyond the control of the government, but that's because they are taking bribes from the Oligarchy.
Unless you step back and look at the "Big Picture", you won't understand how all these events are tied together. Once you start seeing connections, they just keep coming.
A few selected sources you should find interesting.
There is a common thread here -- Capitalism. What we are experiencing now is End-stage Capitalism just as Marx predicted. Sometimes it is referred to as "Crony Capitalism". The way to solve the problem is not to be forced to choose between Capitalism or Communism. China and Russia have both chosen very different paths. The one thing they have in common though is that the politicians run the country, not the Oligarchs.
The Oligarchy makes money during Chaos. That is one reason why our choice for president this year is a demented old man or a blow-hard.
If all this is too much, Caitlin Johnstone's substack is a good place to start.
Richard Wolff on Marxism, also look for his Economic Update youTube videos. This one is old but hilarious in a macabre way.
I have taken note of your references, have even obtained the book 'confessions of an economic hitman'.
I will check the links.
Nearly everything you say seems to me to very probably be true.
But it doesn't inform me on the workings of the international oligarchy 'set'.
I am no wiser.
Yes, they seek money and power, sure, what else would we expect? If we had much money we'd seek more and would seek to exercise the power it gives us I would expect.
But that statement is a commonly known broad overview and doesn't give any detail, any illumination.
That was what I wanted.
That arose from consideration of the contention there's a plot to balkanise Russia and Putin is part of it. So I suppose, I accept, that material pertinent to that question is relevant to me.
There seems to be none of that, though, either. I see nothing to convince me of that plot with those actors.
I realise it is not an easy ask, what I ask. If it were then the answers, the information, would be everywhere and I wouldn't need to ask.
It is necessary to separate the specific 'evil' design from the overall trend and that's not easy. I mean the 'overall trend' of all business everywhere is to maximise profits. It is a soulless robotic inhuman aim. But it is enshrined in law, even: a company director an go to jail even for failing to do his best to maximise company profits.
Awful though that background is we have to accept that it IS. It IS the fact.
And from that mire we have to extract those giveaway features that show us some more organised, more specific, more dangerous manipulations. To prove the point.
Not easy.
But thank you for your response. As I say, I will consult your links.
Putin is Xi’s gimp! Putin is a dumbass that killed his golden goose (piped gas to EU) for some crappy territory and old mouths to feed and old bodies to heat.
Wow? Just as I was recommending people might want to review the positions taken on Quora about the Ukraine war you provide a fairly good example.
What an interesting substack you have.
Let us review a couple of things.
The USA blew up the Nordstream pipeline to make it harder for the EU vassals to complete with the US economy. The American pursuit of global hegemony is dying, but with idiots like Blinken, Sullivan, and Nuland directing the policies of the Biden administration, that fact will not be recognized.
It is the EU economies that are suffering lack of access to Russian gas. There is one of the pipelines that is still intact. Russia had offered to turn it back on anytime Germany is willing to accept the gas. Events may have made that offer moot.
There are plenty of other customers for Russian products. Pipelines to China are being constructed at a breakneck pace. Trade between Russia and China, the two leading members of BRICS, is increasing dramatically. In any case Russia is one of the few Autarkic nations on earth. It need not trade with anybody. China, on the other hand, needs Russian agricultural products. China is on pace to build infrastructure for 300,000,000 people in the next 15 year. [Inside China Business]
At the Winter Olympics in China, just before the beginning of the SMO, Putin visited Xi to brief him on what was happening. It wasn't to get Xi's approval but to make sure Xi was informed. All Xi asked was that Putin hold off until after the Olympics. Putin complied.
Your contempt for the ethnic Russians living in the Donbas is noted. Are you by any chance from Lvov? Maybe Polish?
I accept that Ukrainians blew up NS1 and almost helped Putin win the war. So they are dumbasses like Putin because with a hurricane over Cuba at the time is when Putin came closest to inflicting the most monetary pain on Europe. American LNG companies have done God’s work and taken Russian market share and with an assist from mild winters have helped defeat Putin. Now Putin is Xi’s gimp….and Xi doesn’t use lube!!
That depends on how much backdoor money the U.S. Fed can print to get London, the Caymans and every other owned Foreign Agent to buy up unsaleable U.S. Debt.
There is a Dynamic Equilibrium in the Dual Citizen banking religion that depends on interdependency.
Who are the retards that actually believed the lie that Putin was going to "share Crimea?" Do these people know ANYTHING about Putin and Russia, and have they paid ANY attention to the history of Ukraine over the last ten years? 🙄
Regarding Orban, he is one of the few europeans left that has a functioning brain. The rest of them are complete morons that still think Europe is the center of the world, and that they have any power to affect anything. They are nothing more than vassal states, controlled and dominated by the GAE.
And who else would Orban talk to to achieve peace but Putin? There is no one else to discuss anything of significance with; certainly not Zelensky, who has no legitimacy whatsoever.
Really, the stupidity of the europeans is mind-blowing. They are living in some sort of little fantasy land over there or something. Orban might be the only sane european leader on that continent.
Historical significance aside, in a material sense, Russia doesn't need Odessa for the sea access, and neither does NATO. Only Ukraine does, but they don't call the shots and are locked into a South Vietnam path of national suicide a-la-Diem.
Stop? Eventually when Russia wins. It has already slowed down massively. They got a massive package recently but that was mostly a graft package for the US. In terms of material aid, the majority Ukraine will get has already been sent. Barring direct NATO entry into the war.
Yes, but I don't think that rises to the top 5 of the priority list of Moscow's war objectives. Russia (and for that matter Europe and Asia) isn't the US, with oceanic distances from all but two non threatening countries. If US/NATO is determined to do a harassment or terror campaign by proxy, there is no shortage of places in the enormously long border where it can be done. What's stopping Ukrainian fascists from launching from the coast of Romania, for instance? I can tell you US or UK or Germany care no more for the price they might pay than the price paid by Ukraine's own remaining residents.
And then, the other problem with this episode is that there is potential for US/NATO to repeat it, if they consider it a success. So the whole thing has to be shut down a level higher. IOW it is more or less destined has to go on until US/NATO are convinced that it isn't fruitful for them, or at least is not fruitful enough to be ranked above other areas of conflict for the US such as the Middle East or SE Asia. And I'd say this is now happening.
BlackRock and Monsanto need Odessa's ports or their grain exports and they will fight to keep Odessa even if it takes US and NATO forces sending troops into Ukraine via Romania and Moldova. Odessa holds more value than Kiev.
The rate it's going, Ukraine will be out of people before the fighting gets halfway there. RF seems content to have Donetsk and Kharkov as the battleground
It all depends on what the US plans are for Odessa. The Russians are not going to allow Odessa to be used as a base for NATO or for future aggression. Allowing Odessa to be used as a springboard for the west would defeat the Russia's purpose for this war.
If Russia can force Ukraine to submit, demilitarize, and accept neutrality then it is possible that Odessa can remain as a part of a Ukrainian Rump-state. That is a big if because Odessa is historically a Russian city that should be a part of Russia.
Yep, I think that. He needs it because it IS Russian. I think he needs Kharkiv, too, for the same reason. The oblast I mean. So I'm surprised he leaves them out. Perhaps he means to set up a peace wherein people's wishes can be expressed via referenda and then those wishes honoured.
I note he was willing to settle for much, much less at the time of the Istanbul agreement and he told the Donbas their future was with Kiev Ukraine and he made them do the most of the fighting in '22 and he said decades ago that Russia does not need what the USSR had: that problem the English and the Romans had - ruling over recalcitrants.
So I'm thinking perhaps essentially he's of a mind to protect Russians where he must - he's said that - but for the most part peoples must look after themselves and protect themselves from bad governments, not sit around waiting to be 'rescued' by some american style hero on a white horse riding to the rescue.
And I'm inclined to agree with that kind of attitude.
We need to grow up and accept involvement and responsibility. The time has come where we can do that: inform ourselves and involve ourselves; with these modern tools and technology.
It's 2024. Ukraine is buckling umder pressure, and the Western backers are gobbling their own gobbledygook. It looks rosy - but that's if the country yoi reside in is part of BRICS+
what is GAE ? And as far as the Europeans being stupid - this video is about Israel but it shows clearly that the public of Europe is not on the same page at all than their governments...its a problem and might even be the same problem - https://youtu.be/h-I_oYW0IIo
GAE = Global American Empire, sometimes known as "The West" or the "Global North" or just the "elites" or "globalists" or "WEF" or "Bilderbergers". Lots of euphemisms.
What Sam said about the "also known as" is completely inaccurate. Also, he missed out on the GloboHomo aspect, because "GAE" is prounced "GAY", it's better understood like Globohomo American Empire
The august, indispensable "paper of record", the NYT confirms your remark. We really needed an update on the tranny scene in Brazil...thank you very much NYT.
It's utter madness that the US constantly advocating this disturbing LGBT b/s. Like it's part of their very own constitution and every country must submit to it or else expect sanctions or even regime change. All the vassals in the West including my country the UK fully submit to this ideology which we know where it comes from . My newly elected WEF acolyte PM has been ridiculed for not being able to explain what a women is for gods sake. Western armies forced to celebrate men sodomizing each other, pride month with half naked men parading in the street in S&M gear & trans men who get sexually aroused when dressed up promoted to entertain children, complete madness. It sickens me, because I am supposed to celebrate this degeneracy.
Other part is global HOMOgenization. Disney as culture, Coke the official drink, homosex 'marriage' as the default, one language, one religion, one government.
With the Jew on top maintaining their bloodline over a bunch of brown low IQ consumers. Why else do they import the worst negroid Somalis into Sweden’s and other beautiful white countries.
"Farmer Gets a Wife" is a TV program about young farmers selecting selected brides. Now they've upped it to farm boys finding other farm boys.
I have 2 "gay" relatives. They don't spend their time dissing everyone else. Nor do they hide. Not sure where the politicization of homosexuality is heading, but it sure helps to divide. And who requires division to keep up their skim?
They never act alone, but perhaps a more useful criterion is the overlapping category of homosexual. I have no issue with socially conservative, religious Jews: I'm worried about war addicts who want me and everyone else to die violently. A huge number of these people are gay.
Some people have children, or want to, and think about the future. Some people have no consideration of posterity and would lose nothing by starting WWIII. It would be amusing to them.
The Orthodox Jew are the worse and most bloodthirsty. Don’t serve and believe all others are goyim. These are inbred retards who spend all day reading their stupid book and looking for hookers.
Globohomo American Empire, more accurately. The whole point of the acronym is GAE = GAY.
Also, no, those other categories are terms are not euphemisms for the GAE. Sam, I don't know where you get that idea from, on its face it's not slightly right: Global North would include Russia, The West is a cultural and territorial conception that has existed fot centuries, WEF is self explanatory, as is Bilderberg Group. These aren't catch-all boogyman slogans.
The internet and cheap, ubiquitous electronic video & connectivity broke our old traditional main stream media "gate keepers" monopoly on the news and information peoples opinions are influenced by.. Ordinary people with cell phone video capture and even intermittent connectivity are more than the New York Times/Daily Mail & etc. can overcome. Our actual rulers may have been fatally cut by the other edge of this technological sword they thought would enhance their surveillance and control-
thanks I 'll have a look - I tried to sign up for the New Arab but even though I put my email in the box, I couldn't sign up...I wonder if its censorship
I have been pondering this fact for years now. They truly did not see this possibility, that us plebes would use it to inform ourselves and then use it against them. Just like all their other failures they didn't see coming, but this eff-up was monumental. I have to say that they did have a partial win, because younger generations raised on the internet and social media are cognitively and psychologically challenged in ways older generations do not understand. Not all, of course. My daughter turned out fine, just apathetic.
I remember when Jobs introduced the revolution of the Apple Computer to give the little guy the power, and I am active on the internet VOTING for articles I like by commenting. But that seems insufficient. We don't get a billion views, the music videos and what is fashionable does. So how do we stop the war and all except through new music? It seems it has to be done on the street, or with guns like Lexington, or economic warfare (what do you think the Bitcoin psyop and silver are?), or engagement in local and national elections, and engagement with candidates in local and national candidates. Now seems like a great opportunity.
"Who are the retards that actually believed the lie that Putin was going to "share Crimea?" Do these people know ANYTHING about Putin and Russia, and have they paid ANY attention to the history of Ukraine over the last ten years?"
Sadly, "the retards" who will believe it are the same people who continue to believe the absolute trash put out by the corrupt corporate media. The U.S. citizenry is running around with their hair on fire. They (half of them) are now joyous they believe they will get Trump back as President. They (other half) are furious that Trump may win. Of course, I believe we will see minor domestic changes with Trump, BUT foreign policy will remain, in fact, Trump is more controlled than he was last time. His foreign policy will be the same as what we see now
That’s because we are energy dominant thanks to Putin’s asinine invasion of Ukraine. Guess where the natural gas we export to EU comes from?? Speaker Johnson’s district.
By tradition, the Russian experts at the think tanks who influence US foreign policy visited Moscow and St Petersburg a couple of times in the 90s and that’s the basis of their expertise.
They have no insight into how Russian leadership thinks.
They have firm delusions about public sentiment in Russia.
They also seem to believe the Russian military is stuck in 1986 and American military might rules the world.
People's views don't change with evidence only emotion. On average. So the views they grew up with = reality. To them, until it hits an iceberg. That's why the populist right wants to return to the 80s culturally, while the left wants to make the world a drunken college campus.
IMO, he is patriotic, is focused on protecting and improving the living standards of his people, is anti-war, anti-EU, and a bunch more. To my mind those are good traits which I wish other European leaders shared, rather than the ones we have forever sucking on Uncle Sam's wotsit.
I suppose that actually there is a president today who really believes in that theory of sharing .. a president, who is functionally retarded without any doubts .. and if the people of this country allow to have a functionally retarded president, well, objectively, that people is definitely the most retarded of all ..
I actually studied Russian history and culture in college. It was my major until I realized how things are. Short answer: No, they know nothing, and they get away with knowing nothing because Americans know nothing about Russia so they tolerate insane lies. The most frightening of these beliefs is a recycled neocon classic straight out of Fail-Safe: that Russia doesn't "really" have nuclear weapons.
One day, Americans will just start identifying State Department personnel and murdering them in horrible public crowds, and no one will ask why.
NATO is a paper tiger. They are backed in a corner now. They are trying to save face in any way possible. The people of Europe are going to united against their prison guards and it ain't going to be pretty. And then they are going to throw off the chains of the USSA and we will be isolated from the Eurasian continent for good... Chip
It's propaganda. Not stupid; It was an "I gotcha." You can tell any lie you want to get your people to hate the enemy. Examples: Hillary saying Kadaifi gave his soldiers Viagra so they could rape the woman for hours and 911. God hates these liars who to stir up hatred to profit, and now to save themselves from retribution.
I've heard that Dr. Ken Zhal is very effective at what he does - 'surgical' is a word that's often used.
However, Dr. Ken apparently is also very elusive & difficult to track, has a habit of turning up unannounced at various locations taking everyone by complete surprise, and can have a highly explosive temperament.
Thank you for keeping it all straight Simp. We laugh at the West Elite. One shouldn’t get too arrogant about that though. We have our work cut out for us. We are all knee deep in unreality. This is where the elites will seek refuge. Yes, of course it’s crazy.
They had complete confidence in the billions spent to create the Afghan Army.
You can count on one hand the milliseconds it took for the Afghan President to get out of Dodge. And on 2 hands the weeks it took for the Taliban, armed with rifles to take over the whole country.
A firm story doesn't negate a feather's worth of truth.
They have retaliated and wiped out NATO officer types, western arms shipments/stores, degraded the Ukraine gid to collapse and now the NATO thugs have moved the flight path of drones from over the Black Sea to over NATO countries. To respond to a terrorist attack with a terrorist attack would be highly immoral.
How do you know? I've not heard from any source. There is speculation from multiple sources (although maybe it is mostly VIPS) now that Russia declared the no-fly zone whether or not they would shoot down a manned aircraft or just drones.
I mean, the reports are as unreliable as how many ships the Houthis have sunk in the Red Sea.
I'm pretty sure VIPS would have said something beyond their speculation about what Russia might do in response to the Crimea Beach attack.
I've seen reports on several sites that are usually pretty accurate that there are none. There are possibly manned flights but they are not venturing very far out. Also, the Houthis have damaged and sunk ships. That's clearly true. They might have hit the Eisenhower, as well, but "mission accomplished", right?
I didn't say the Houthis haven't sunk ships, I question "how many".
Just in case: VIPS -- Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. They are on Judge Naps show frequently. Often on Dialogue Works. Sometimes on the Duran and Danny Haiphong.
Yes, compare the Houthi situation. The US summoned an international task force. Then everybody dropped out one by one, most humiliatingly Britain. Then the Houyhis said they'd demonstrated something known since the beginning of naval aviation, the captain of our flagship demonstrated standard inept NAFO propaganda flailing, and we apparently chose to decamp for no reason.
It's like living in Nazi Germany and figuring out by omissions and movememts that we're getting our ass kicked. And, like Nazi Germany, we deserve it. The US loses every war it starts.
Yea they are. Guess you missed the crimean terrorist attack on yhe beach goers. Guess what? That was from a reaper drone. Guess what? Russia didn't do anything in retaliation for it. And I've saw reports of them flying in the black sea after that. And Russia is still afraid to shoot them down. It's pathetic
This general was in Ukraine 5 days before his body was "discovered" at 29 palms. There was a Kinzhal attack on an installation manned by US troops on that day. Total speculation as to whether or not this was "retaliation" LOL.
Of course, as Ritter says, the Ike was well over-extended on this tour which was over 9 months because, the USN is in such a sad state of repair. No resources to replace the Ike.
Feel free to provide evidence to the contrary.
The blowhards in Washington that you seem to listen to are lying to you.
They are the same ones telling you that Israel isn't committing genocide; that Ukraine is winning; that China is preparing "any day now" to invade Taiwan; and who insisted you take an unproven, untested vaccine for a bioterror virus that they themselves developed. They told you that Ivermectin wouldn't help although there is plenty of evidence it did and they refused to allow you the option of the much cheaper, traditionally developed, Chinese Vaccine that seems to be much more effective.
Compare the deaths in China with the death in the US.
http://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2024/07/i-explain.html
"(I kind of have the hots for Navy Seals?)"
Nothing personal, and no hard feelings, but I suggest you beware of the media gas light: things can seem sooo enchanting….
On April 9th, 1775, approximately 14,000 local "goat herders" converged on the road from Boston to Concord (Massachusetts Colony) to contest their opposition's version of Operation Redwing. Similar results were accomplished.
"…And they are Xtremely Ethical"
Regarding those mercs in 404: at some time in our lives, we are all presented with our own, personal "My Lai" moment, wherein we get to decide as an individual whether or not to stray from the middle of the Ethical Road (and into the muck in the ditch on either side of the road). Part and parcel to "exceptionalism" is that the Ethical Road is irrelevant. (Hence, My Lai becomes the norm).
Nonetheless, your contrast is apposite: be advised that the Russian Federation has established ongoing efforts to identify and bring to justice, any and all perpetrators. Although some arrest warrants have been issued to date, it will take some years to work the process to the point where the typical 'murican "volunteer" has outstanding warrants. (It'll be interesting to see the language in the eventual peace/security treaty(ies) regarding execution of arrest warrants and judicial venue.)
"The Red wing I meant was the one where Marcus Luttrell survived. They made a movie about it ('Lone Star', I think)."
It was "Lone Survivor." Luttrell "wrote" the book, and then it was movietized; now on DVD at Amazon et al.
Should you view the special features accompanying the movie on the DVD, you'll come across the story of how the movie producers had the actors trained to portray Navy Seals. Essentially, the producers brought in retired Seals to train the actors in basic infantry/combat skills, in order to provide realism. I recognized one of those trainers as someone I trained with some thirty years ago in the high desert of Arizona.
"I believe the Russians are irreproachable…"
Again, nothing personal, and no hard feelings, but the Russians are just people; nothing more and nothing less; and having the same foibles as anyone else. That they, as a nation, are attempting to stay in the middle of the Ethical Road with their international relations is certainly to their credit. However, it remains to be seen how they acquit themselves as the future unfolds: the war against them is intensifying and will continue to do so until the Hegemon expires. At that point it will be their turn to decide whether or not to be "exceptional."
In 21st century America, appearances and perception are far more important than reality. It's true for almost anything you can name.
True but this has been the case always. Printing Press, Radio, Television, Internet all only increased this. America is just worse because isolated from actual reality. Plus urbanization.
I'm pretty sure he'll go to Israel....
And how about Cornel West?
Well, in this case, I think ol' Brandon could honestly say that he was just doing what he was told.
They're burning current troops on the front lines to buy time for the fresh ones to train and accumulate for an assault. Because that is what their masters demand from them. But it's quite ineffective and in the end they get inexperienced semi-trained quasi-soldiers who don't change anything.
And that is why the war will run till 2040? 🤣
Of course not, I am basing my calculations on certain cycles and my estimates of the large systems inertia. It might end sooner if NATO graciously dismantles itself, but I find it unlikely. Only Soviet Union had enough conscience to just withdraw.
Why do Russians need to care about western popular opinions that have been shaped by mass media? The msm is owned by zionists and controlled by the dishonorable MIC and thuggish security (“intelligence”) services. Time for Russia to pursue her interests by adhering to the legal principles. Self determination is a powerful factor.
First?
Yes. Congrats.
Clownish.
Yeah just taking the piss 😂
Emoji from a gamma. What is next, Lol?
A badge of honour that I carry several times.
Here's hoping Putin doesn't compromise for the sake of peace.
He has neither reason nor desire to compromise.
Russia is on a roll, and Ukraine is collapsing day by day.
They should have given up months ago.
He has plenty of reasons. The Russian oligarchs, the leftovers of the Yeltsin administration, and all the state officials with family links to the West are pressing Putin to accept almost any capitulation to be back in good graces with Western Partners and get Yachts back. Did you even read that first peace proposal? Was basically a surrender. The Europhiles won that round.
On the other side you have handcuffed General staff and public who want it all. All Russian areas, all war criminals executed, and small, rump Western state, full of Nazi strangled to death.
Which side Putin will choose is hard to say
I think it was Michael Hudson in a recent Dialogue Works YouTube video who explained that the US put sanctions on the Russian Oligarchy. That had been Putin's primary goal after becoming the President of Russia. The USA cut the balls off of his biggest problem!
With the Oligarchy gone, Putin is now free to reorganize his nation in a way that serves all Russians, not just the Oligarchs who were installed by the USA "advisors" after the fall of the USSR which nearly destroyed the Russian Federation.
Putin is going to go down in history as the "Father of Modern Russia". He is chairing the BRICS summit this month in Kazan. There are efforts from different sides to combine the BRICS, SCO, EAEA, and SCTO into a "UN for everyone but the West".
Putin will be known as the greatest statesman since Caesar having been responsible for the destruction of the American Empire.
On the other hand, neocons like Kagan, Blinken, Sullivan and the rest of the Zionists running the American government are too stupid to understand that if you keep beating people up, eventually they will pull a "Nat Turner" on you. In other words:
"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves,"
Hopeium IMO. Putin still meets with Oligarchs twice a year in a secret dinner like a Russian Davos. Putin used Russian UK/Israeli oligarch Roman Abramovich
for Avov prisoner swap and he's one of Putin's trusted advisors and personnel freind. Putin still sells everything he can to West not wanting to upset Oligarchs.
We'll knw soon enough based on how conciliatory Putin is to West/Ukraine if nationalists or globalist oligarchs won Putin over. Ukraine Army can't survive much past 2025.
Here's the video. I have a lot of respect for Hudson, your sources seem to all be in your head.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JeLgZPIa5iE
Roman Abramovich may be rich, but is he a Russian Patriot or a crook.
George Soros is an Israeli agent. Just exactly what is Warren Buffet?
You remind me of the idiot that posted an article claiming that the Chinese economy was falling apart because of the Evergrande crisis when I corrected him and explained China was putting its Financial Fraud Crooks in jail; taking their money; and giving back to those who had been defrauded. (Unlike what Obama did in 2008)
He had only read the headline and insisted China was "Doomed, Doomed I tell ya". China is STILL going to grow its economy more than 5% this year, something they've been doing for 40 years now.
China even executes those billionaires guilty of gross financial fraud, unlike (for example) how Michael Milken spent a few years in jail and is STILL a billionaire
Russians have great respect for Putin and your BS claim that he's a figurehead or a puppet of the Russian Oligarchy is crap, especially in light of the US Oligarchy control over that tottering fool Joe Biden.
I don't say it often, but 'WAKE THE FUCK UP!"
https://www.theglobaltreasurer.com/2024/05/23/a-deeper-dive-into-chinas-housing-secto-crisis/?amp=1
It's like, "WOW" you found a pot hole on some backwater street in a no-name town so you make a post that all the roads in that town are full of potholes.
And you have a substack? How sad.
My sources are Russians or people in RUssia like John Helmer. You might want to spend some time here informing yourself than slobbering all over Putin cock. The let down will be easier to cope with when Putin bitches out to please his Oligarchs and Europhiles.
https://slavlandchronicles.substack.com/archive
The meeting of Obama in the back seat of Hank Paulson's limo was quickly erased from the internet.
Obama moved from chain-smoking mediocrity into the Black American Savior (Hope and Change) as soon as the Dual Citizen Money (stolen from Middle Class America) ramped up his campaign.
Yes, reports of China's demise are always a bit premature, ... like every quarter. Gotta keep churning those retail buyers/sellers of Chinese stocks on the US markets.
read the globaltreasurer 'deep dive' and didn't find it very deep. I think the 'depth' is in the fact that housing was (is?) the place for the chinese to put their wealth in the absence of stock market prospects. I think no mention of that? but fundamental to the 1.4 billion.
Putin appears to maintain a steady hand and meeting the Oligarchs is a smart move. No chance Putin is going to lessen his gifted American mistake of weakening Russian Oligarchs, and the Russian People despising these Dual Citizens of Russia.
Putin and the rest of Russia need only to look to the USA and Europe to see the Divide and Conquer destruction instigated by these deceivers.
I hope you're right. But IME good guys lose except in movies. Putin is up against powerful forces in and out of his country.
A good rule of thumb seems to be that even if something Putin is doing appears to be stupid, it will later turn out that it was done that way for a reason, and it worked pretty well. Examples abound - look what Putin is doing!! He's selling out!! He'll destroy Russia!! Oh, wait - per-capita GDP adjusted for PPP actually went up. Again. Never mind that - look what the fool is doing now!! Is he crazy???
Putin could never carry out enough rug-pulling to make a despairing Mark 'Gerasimov Doctrine' Galeotti moan in agony that he has 'the luck of the devil' unassisted, and much of his success is due to good advice from loyal aides and professionals. But it takes a good leader to know who to listen to and which courses of action have the best chance of success.
Good thoughts.
"the US put sanctions on the Russian Oligarchy. That had been Putin's primary goal after becoming the President of Russia. The USA cut the balls off of his biggest problem!"
pResident Biden agrees that your thoughts are "gooder"
"All Hail the Chaff."
It occurs to me that my reference to Nat Turner might be rather obscure.
Norman Finkelstein explains it in his critique of the Gaza Genocide.
"We told you and we told you and we told you and we told you. What did you think was going to happen?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0eEz22kyukY
Not directly related to this SitRep, but well worth listening too.
It is very helpful in understanding what is going to happen as the American Empire crumbles.
I like these opinions of yours. I note the 'other side' that doesn't agree with them is strong on the contention that Putin is dancing to the tune of the oligarchs. Rurik Skywalker for instance insisting the whole thing is merely a plot to balkanise Russia so's the international oligarchs can eat it up.
I really have no idea what the international oligarch scene is like and I wish I did.
I know of no literature that can/will tell me.
Seems to me that history has always been the history of oligarchs because what else are 'royal families' ?
So when I think of that I imagine them girdling the earth and mixing a mingling here and there and constantly engaging in machiavellian schemes to down each other. Loose alliances and pacts here there and everywhere.
And it seems the whole western financial system has been set up by them.
Meaning they have created our whole world.
So: that brings me to where I can't see how Putin has anything else to work with but them.
Like that is his material by default.
You can't make a silk purse from a sow's ear.
He only has sow's ears to work with.
That's the background upon which he works, his environment, his material.
Hence these critics finding connections between him and oligarchs and connections internationally between the oligarchs seem to me to be being a little naive and presumptuous: presuming he could create a reality suddenly devoid of all that.
However talking of naive I have to admit I am unschooled and without experience or connections so I may be the most naive of all.
If you know of any literature please tell.
But I like, prefer your view to these others in these columns. :)
You wanted "literature", there are a bunch of YouTube videos at the bottom of this post. The individuals who make the videos also have lots and lots of literature.
There is a plot to balkanize Russia. That is why the Ukraine war is being fought.
When the cold war ended and the US promised that NATO would not expand "1 inch East", the USSR started to break up. Gorbachov naively thought peace was on the horizon. He invited American experts, like Jeffrey Sachs, to come to the USSR and help it recover its economy. Well, American Oligarchs, who finance the "Deep State" [Good] sent "operatives" who convinced Boris Yeltsin that Russia would be better off without the dregs of the USSR hanging on, so the USSR broke up. Yeltsin was a drunk who was susceptible to flattery. The "operatives" (there are so many different organizations and people with so many different agendas it is impossible to identify them individually, but if you know about the "Carpetbaggers" who stormed the South after the Civil War to "seek their fortune", these "operatives" are similar except that today they have evolved and are generally financed by rich American billionaires. John Perkins book, "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" provides a perspective of what these "operatives" were 30 years ago.
You might want to look at how Ukraine is financing its war by selling off its assets to Blackrock. Can you see why Blackrock might want to keep this war going?
Aaron Good (see link below) has a long youTube series "Empire and the Deep State" which starts with the history of Samuel Zemurray, "Sam the banana man" in the '30s and how he used thuggery and "Mission Impossible" intrigue to establish United Fruit in Honduras (which is why they are called "Banana Republics"). In later videos he talks about the Rockefeller family and their involvement with the 1964 massacre in Indonesia.
The important point is to recognize that many of these "operatives" are neo-criminals or even actual criminals who have been organizing and reorganizing since America's founding (Aaron Good). All the crime movies you've ever watched show how the "Organization" became tighter and tighter over decades. I think HBOs "Boardwalk Empire", "Lansky" staring Harvey Keitel and, of course, "The Godfather" explore this best. There are "inside guys" and "outside guys". The movies don't show the criminal interaction with government agencies, but look up how the FBI ensured there would be no German spies on the East Coast during WWII.
Back to the USSR breakup, the "operatives" convinced Yeltsin that the pathway to a happy economy was privatization. This led to the rise of the Russian Oligarchy. The Oligarchy ran the country not elected officials. (Just like in the USA today. Think of the articles about the "Democratic donor class" panicking over Biden's obvious dementia.) The Russian Oligarchs decided they needed a new puppet and figured that Putin being former KGB would work out well for them. Putin came to power in 1999 and had to "play footsie" with the Oligarchy, but used the time wisely to consolidate alliances with patriotic Russians. He was able to make a deal with the Oligarchs that he wouldn't bother them if they didn't bother him. Like the American Oligarchy (Tony Blinken is an excellent representative of the group. He also perfectly matches the stereotypical Jew Shylock. PLEASE I am NOT saying this is true of all Jews. Norm Finkelstein and Aaron Mate certainly do not display that stereotype) the Russian Oligarchy thought that money was the only thing that motivated anyone. They were too stupid and ignorant to understand Putin's patriotism and love for Russia. [Scott Ritter] Their ignorance is on display every time they accuse Putin of being "pure evil". It is because they themselves are evil. Hudson explains how this ignorance of the American Oligarchy led them to believe that they could harm Russia by sanctioning the Russian criminal Oligarchy.
I need to explain that being rich doesn't necessarily make you a member of the Oligarchy. JFK was murdered because he was opposing the American Oligarchy. [Good]
The American neocons want to rule the world. Do you recall the Project for a New American Century? Rather than use the peace dividend for "peace", the US ventured off on lost war after lost war after lost war. Look up Robert Kagan and his wife Victoria Nuland. They lobbied and acted on continued provocations against Russia. Nuland was responsible for the 2014 Maidan coup. I hate to point this out but they are both Jews. Some will chastise me for this and insist they are Zionists, but I cannot imagine they pursue American Hegemony for the benefit of Israel. Zemurray also was a Jew. Murder Incorporated was a Jewish crime organization. I keep trying to come up with a label that will identify this kind of violent, greedy Jew and separate him from honest hardworking and absolutely brilliant Jews like Albert Einstein. Maybe I should coin "Bibis" after the Gaza genocide architect? Maybe AIPACians? (IMO, AIPAC uses Israel as a front to cover their funding of criminal activities -- Much like Tony Sopranos "waste management business".)
These criminal Oligarchy kept insisting that NATO continue to expand east. Putin begged them to not do this. Then Bush and Trump said they would no longer abide by several nuclear weapons treaties. Putin said over and over and over again, "If you keep coming east, Russia has to assume you are planning on invading our nation. We will respond". Given what happened after the breakup of the USSR, he has every reason to be wary.
The members of the Oligarchy are all at least tainted by crime if not actually neck deep in it. Consider the source of wealth of Barak Obama, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden. For those who think I'm picking on Democrats, do recall the role played by Neil Bush in the collapse of the Silverado Savings and Loan during the S&L crisis. Wolff explains that the US economy is manipulated so that there is a recession every 4 to 7 years. The MSM (owned by the Oligarchy, for instance Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post) will insist there are events beyond the control of the government, but that's because they are taking bribes from the Oligarchy.
Unless you step back and look at the "Big Picture", you won't understand how all these events are tied together. Once you start seeing connections, they just keep coming.
A few selected sources you should find interesting.
There is a common thread here -- Capitalism. What we are experiencing now is End-stage Capitalism just as Marx predicted. Sometimes it is referred to as "Crony Capitalism". The way to solve the problem is not to be forced to choose between Capitalism or Communism. China and Russia have both chosen very different paths. The one thing they have in common though is that the politicians run the country, not the Oligarchs.
The Oligarchy makes money during Chaos. That is one reason why our choice for president this year is a demented old man or a blow-hard.
If all this is too much, Caitlin Johnstone's substack is a good place to start.
Richard Wolff on Marxism, also look for his Economic Update youTube videos. This one is old but hilarious in a macabre way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU-AkeOyiOQ&t=110s
The New Atlas: Brian Berletic. He uses MSM articles to debunk the narrative they are trying to tell. All of his sources are listed.
https://www.youtube.com/@TheNewAtlas
Geopolitical Economy Report: especially the interviews with Michael Hudson, they are in a separate play list
https://www.youtube.com/@GeopoliticalEconomyReport
Joti Brar: an English communist who is very good at explaining things
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZsSj1fu9zM&
Aaron Good Empire and the Deep State series. America has always been run by the Oligarchy. Also look for his American Exception podcast.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLDAi0NdlN8hNArLl765PXe8tsTKmOciGL
Hello and thank you for this.
I have taken note of your references, have even obtained the book 'confessions of an economic hitman'.
I will check the links.
Nearly everything you say seems to me to very probably be true.
But it doesn't inform me on the workings of the international oligarchy 'set'.
I am no wiser.
Yes, they seek money and power, sure, what else would we expect? If we had much money we'd seek more and would seek to exercise the power it gives us I would expect.
But that statement is a commonly known broad overview and doesn't give any detail, any illumination.
That was what I wanted.
That arose from consideration of the contention there's a plot to balkanise Russia and Putin is part of it. So I suppose, I accept, that material pertinent to that question is relevant to me.
There seems to be none of that, though, either. I see nothing to convince me of that plot with those actors.
I realise it is not an easy ask, what I ask. If it were then the answers, the information, would be everywhere and I wouldn't need to ask.
It is necessary to separate the specific 'evil' design from the overall trend and that's not easy. I mean the 'overall trend' of all business everywhere is to maximise profits. It is a soulless robotic inhuman aim. But it is enshrined in law, even: a company director an go to jail even for failing to do his best to maximise company profits.
Awful though that background is we have to accept that it IS. It IS the fact.
And from that mire we have to extract those giveaway features that show us some more organised, more specific, more dangerous manipulations. To prove the point.
Not easy.
But thank you for your response. As I say, I will consult your links.
Putin is Xi’s gimp! Putin is a dumbass that killed his golden goose (piped gas to EU) for some crappy territory and old mouths to feed and old bodies to heat.
Wow? Just as I was recommending people might want to review the positions taken on Quora about the Ukraine war you provide a fairly good example.
What an interesting substack you have.
Let us review a couple of things.
The USA blew up the Nordstream pipeline to make it harder for the EU vassals to complete with the US economy. The American pursuit of global hegemony is dying, but with idiots like Blinken, Sullivan, and Nuland directing the policies of the Biden administration, that fact will not be recognized.
It is the EU economies that are suffering lack of access to Russian gas. There is one of the pipelines that is still intact. Russia had offered to turn it back on anytime Germany is willing to accept the gas. Events may have made that offer moot.
There are plenty of other customers for Russian products. Pipelines to China are being constructed at a breakneck pace. Trade between Russia and China, the two leading members of BRICS, is increasing dramatically. In any case Russia is one of the few Autarkic nations on earth. It need not trade with anybody. China, on the other hand, needs Russian agricultural products. China is on pace to build infrastructure for 300,000,000 people in the next 15 year. [Inside China Business]
At the Winter Olympics in China, just before the beginning of the SMO, Putin visited Xi to brief him on what was happening. It wasn't to get Xi's approval but to make sure Xi was informed. All Xi asked was that Putin hold off until after the Olympics. Putin complied.
Your contempt for the ethnic Russians living in the Donbas is noted. Are you by any chance from Lvov? Maybe Polish?
I accept that Ukrainians blew up NS1 and almost helped Putin win the war. So they are dumbasses like Putin because with a hurricane over Cuba at the time is when Putin came closest to inflicting the most monetary pain on Europe. American LNG companies have done God’s work and taken Russian market share and with an assist from mild winters have helped defeat Putin. Now Putin is Xi’s gimp….and Xi doesn’t use lube!!
Unless the victory is total, there is always some kind of compromise in a negotiation ..
For better or worse, there will be no opportunity. The US will use its last bit of influence to stop such a compromise happening
That depends on how much backdoor money the U.S. Fed can print to get London, the Caymans and every other owned Foreign Agent to buy up unsaleable U.S. Debt.
There is a Dynamic Equilibrium in the Dual Citizen banking religion that depends on interdependency.
The word "hope" is doing an awful lot of work here.
The good guys don't win simply because they're good. If they win, it is because they do what it takes to win.
“Putin is looking for an off ramp.” Being after the Orban visit. Lolol…..Ya gotta hand it to those mother fuckers 🤣
Who are the retards that actually believed the lie that Putin was going to "share Crimea?" Do these people know ANYTHING about Putin and Russia, and have they paid ANY attention to the history of Ukraine over the last ten years? 🙄
Regarding Orban, he is one of the few europeans left that has a functioning brain. The rest of them are complete morons that still think Europe is the center of the world, and that they have any power to affect anything. They are nothing more than vassal states, controlled and dominated by the GAE.
And who else would Orban talk to to achieve peace but Putin? There is no one else to discuss anything of significance with; certainly not Zelensky, who has no legitimacy whatsoever.
Really, the stupidity of the europeans is mind-blowing. They are living in some sort of little fantasy land over there or something. Orban might be the only sane european leader on that continent.
It's impossible to share Crimea..
Putin wants Odessa . In fact he needs it. I doubt if the Russian people would stand for it after loosing so many sons in this war.
Historical significance aside, in a material sense, Russia doesn't need Odessa for the sea access, and neither does NATO. Only Ukraine does, but they don't call the shots and are locked into a South Vietnam path of national suicide a-la-Diem.
I mostly agree with you ,Pix.
As long as NATO keeps feeding Ukraine bombs and bullets,Russia needs Odessa.
It's doubtful the NATO money train will stop anytime soon , so Russia won't surrender Crimea no matter what Putin says.
For if Putin did so,he'd have a real coup on his hads,and Madeve would take over.
That would be bad news for NATO.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts with me. 😃
Stop? Eventually when Russia wins. It has already slowed down massively. They got a massive package recently but that was mostly a graft package for the US. In terms of material aid, the majority Ukraine will get has already been sent. Barring direct NATO entry into the war.
Direct NATO intervention is coming.
Surely Crimea won't be truly safe from attack while Ukraine still has a Black Sea coastline? For that reason alone Odessa must ultimately be taken.
Yes, but I don't think that rises to the top 5 of the priority list of Moscow's war objectives. Russia (and for that matter Europe and Asia) isn't the US, with oceanic distances from all but two non threatening countries. If US/NATO is determined to do a harassment or terror campaign by proxy, there is no shortage of places in the enormously long border where it can be done. What's stopping Ukrainian fascists from launching from the coast of Romania, for instance? I can tell you US or UK or Germany care no more for the price they might pay than the price paid by Ukraine's own remaining residents.
And then, the other problem with this episode is that there is potential for US/NATO to repeat it, if they consider it a success. So the whole thing has to be shut down a level higher. IOW it is more or less destined has to go on until US/NATO are convinced that it isn't fruitful for them, or at least is not fruitful enough to be ranked above other areas of conflict for the US such as the Middle East or SE Asia. And I'd say this is now happening.
BlackRock and Monsanto need Odessa's ports or their grain exports and they will fight to keep Odessa even if it takes US and NATO forces sending troops into Ukraine via Romania and Moldova. Odessa holds more value than Kiev.
The rate it's going, Ukraine will be out of people before the fighting gets halfway there. RF seems content to have Donetsk and Kharkov as the battleground
It all depends on what the US plans are for Odessa. The Russians are not going to allow Odessa to be used as a base for NATO or for future aggression. Allowing Odessa to be used as a springboard for the west would defeat the Russia's purpose for this war.
If Russia can force Ukraine to submit, demilitarize, and accept neutrality then it is possible that Odessa can remain as a part of a Ukrainian Rump-state. That is a big if because Odessa is historically a Russian city that should be a part of Russia.
Yep, I think that. He needs it because it IS Russian. I think he needs Kharkiv, too, for the same reason. The oblast I mean. So I'm surprised he leaves them out. Perhaps he means to set up a peace wherein people's wishes can be expressed via referenda and then those wishes honoured.
I note he was willing to settle for much, much less at the time of the Istanbul agreement and he told the Donbas their future was with Kiev Ukraine and he made them do the most of the fighting in '22 and he said decades ago that Russia does not need what the USSR had: that problem the English and the Romans had - ruling over recalcitrants.
So I'm thinking perhaps essentially he's of a mind to protect Russians where he must - he's said that - but for the most part peoples must look after themselves and protect themselves from bad governments, not sit around waiting to be 'rescued' by some american style hero on a white horse riding to the rescue.
And I'm inclined to agree with that kind of attitude.
We need to grow up and accept involvement and responsibility. The time has come where we can do that: inform ourselves and involve ourselves; with these modern tools and technology.
I put it this way:
https://abrogard.com/blog/2023/12/25/dont-write-to-congress/
and i find this already exists as a demonstration of the validity of the core legitimacy of the idea: secure individual voter accounts:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-source_voting_system
Thanks for those links Arthur.
Well, 2023 is half gone already and Russia is only a few kilometers closer to Odessa.
Fighting city to city is very difficult. Even more so when both sides have drones.
Doesn't that it is hard. If Russia wants Odessa, it will have to take it, drones or no.
It's 2024. Ukraine is buckling umder pressure, and the Western backers are gobbling their own gobbledygook. It looks rosy - but that's if the country yoi reside in is part of BRICS+
I hope you prove correct, but we've been hearing that for over two years now.
what is GAE ? And as far as the Europeans being stupid - this video is about Israel but it shows clearly that the public of Europe is not on the same page at all than their governments...its a problem and might even be the same problem - https://youtu.be/h-I_oYW0IIo
GAE = Global American Empire, sometimes known as "The West" or the "Global North" or just the "elites" or "globalists" or "WEF" or "Bilderbergers". Lots of euphemisms.
thanks
What Sam said about the "also known as" is completely inaccurate. Also, he missed out on the GloboHomo aspect, because "GAE" is prounced "GAY", it's better understood like Globohomo American Empire
The august, indispensable "paper of record", the NYT confirms your remark. We really needed an update on the tranny scene in Brazil...thank you very much NYT.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/06/30/world/americas/pabllo-vittar-drag-queen-brazil.html?unlocked_article_code=1.400.AJ_E.cvCHMoVBzYPS&smid=url-share
It's utter madness that the US constantly advocating this disturbing LGBT b/s. Like it's part of their very own constitution and every country must submit to it or else expect sanctions or even regime change. All the vassals in the West including my country the UK fully submit to this ideology which we know where it comes from . My newly elected WEF acolyte PM has been ridiculed for not being able to explain what a women is for gods sake. Western armies forced to celebrate men sodomizing each other, pride month with half naked men parading in the street in S&M gear & trans men who get sexually aroused when dressed up promoted to entertain children, complete madness. It sickens me, because I am supposed to celebrate this degeneracy.
Other part is global HOMOgenization. Disney as culture, Coke the official drink, homosex 'marriage' as the default, one language, one religion, one government.
With the Jew on top maintaining their bloodline over a bunch of brown low IQ consumers. Why else do they import the worst negroid Somalis into Sweden’s and other beautiful white countries.
"Farmer Gets a Wife" is a TV program about young farmers selecting selected brides. Now they've upped it to farm boys finding other farm boys.
I have 2 "gay" relatives. They don't spend their time dissing everyone else. Nor do they hide. Not sure where the politicization of homosexuality is heading, but it sure helps to divide. And who requires division to keep up their skim?
All of those is what I see most wrong in the world and the prime vector of evil.
JEWS. Just name the Jew.
It's the Anglo-Saxons. It's always been the Anglo-Saxons.
lol. The Shabos got ones like fdr Churchill Lindsay lady bugs graham trump.
They never act alone, but perhaps a more useful criterion is the overlapping category of homosexual. I have no issue with socially conservative, religious Jews: I'm worried about war addicts who want me and everyone else to die violently. A huge number of these people are gay.
Some people have children, or want to, and think about the future. Some people have no consideration of posterity and would lose nothing by starting WWIII. It would be amusing to them.
The Orthodox Jew are the worse and most bloodthirsty. Don’t serve and believe all others are goyim. These are inbred retards who spend all day reading their stupid book and looking for hookers.
Globohomo American Empire, more accurately. The whole point of the acronym is GAE = GAY.
Also, no, those other categories are terms are not euphemisms for the GAE. Sam, I don't know where you get that idea from, on its face it's not slightly right: Global North would include Russia, The West is a cultural and territorial conception that has existed fot centuries, WEF is self explanatory, as is Bilderberg Group. These aren't catch-all boogyman slogans.
Putin is the one getting assraped by Xi.
Yeah. The same chicken swinger tribe controls the eu bureaucrats who wants war for Israel
@ann Watson
The internet and cheap, ubiquitous electronic video & connectivity broke our old traditional main stream media "gate keepers" monopoly on the news and information peoples opinions are influenced by.. Ordinary people with cell phone video capture and even intermittent connectivity are more than the New York Times/Daily Mail & etc. can overcome. Our actual rulers may have been fatally cut by the other edge of this technological sword they thought would enhance their surveillance and control-
https://www.newarab.com/analysis/numbers-uk-medias-pro-israel-bias-gaza-war-coverage
thanks I 'll have a look - I tried to sign up for the New Arab but even though I put my email in the box, I couldn't sign up...I wonder if its censorship
I have been pondering this fact for years now. They truly did not see this possibility, that us plebes would use it to inform ourselves and then use it against them. Just like all their other failures they didn't see coming, but this eff-up was monumental. I have to say that they did have a partial win, because younger generations raised on the internet and social media are cognitively and psychologically challenged in ways older generations do not understand. Not all, of course. My daughter turned out fine, just apathetic.
I remember when Jobs introduced the revolution of the Apple Computer to give the little guy the power, and I am active on the internet VOTING for articles I like by commenting. But that seems insufficient. We don't get a billion views, the music videos and what is fashionable does. So how do we stop the war and all except through new music? It seems it has to be done on the street, or with guns like Lexington, or economic warfare (what do you think the Bitcoin psyop and silver are?), or engagement in local and national elections, and engagement with candidates in local and national candidates. Now seems like a great opportunity.
"Who are the retards that actually believed the lie that Putin was going to "share Crimea?" Do these people know ANYTHING about Putin and Russia, and have they paid ANY attention to the history of Ukraine over the last ten years?"
No and I'm pretty certain of that.
Well said !
Sadly, "the retards" who will believe it are the same people who continue to believe the absolute trash put out by the corrupt corporate media. The U.S. citizenry is running around with their hair on fire. They (half of them) are now joyous they believe they will get Trump back as President. They (other half) are furious that Trump may win. Of course, I believe we will see minor domestic changes with Trump, BUT foreign policy will remain, in fact, Trump is more controlled than he was last time. His foreign policy will be the same as what we see now
That’s because we are energy dominant thanks to Putin’s asinine invasion of Ukraine. Guess where the natural gas we export to EU comes from?? Speaker Johnson’s district.
The rest of them are conplete zog bots.
I am from Austria, Europa and I absolutely agree. The stupidity and overconfidence of most politicians in Europe is mindblowing.
By tradition, the Russian experts at the think tanks who influence US foreign policy visited Moscow and St Petersburg a couple of times in the 90s and that’s the basis of their expertise.
They have no insight into how Russian leadership thinks.
They have firm delusions about public sentiment in Russia.
They also seem to believe the Russian military is stuck in 1986 and American military might rules the world.
I lived in Moscow for several years for work. Even married a Russian.
It’s quite true that people who don’t immerse themselves will never be actual experts on a country.
I don’t pretend to be an expert, but I certainly know more about Russians than just about any of the “experts” trotted out on the major networks.
People's views don't change with evidence only emotion. On average. So the views they grew up with = reality. To them, until it hits an iceberg. That's why the populist right wants to return to the 80s culturally, while the left wants to make the world a drunken college campus.
Yes. I am in France and much as I don't like Orban he's definitely shaking things up.
I have NO idea what is wrong with these nutcases who want to keep war going.
Genuine question: why do you not like Orban?
IMO, he is patriotic, is focused on protecting and improving the living standards of his people, is anti-war, anti-EU, and a bunch more. To my mind those are good traits which I wish other European leaders shared, rather than the ones we have forever sucking on Uncle Sam's wotsit.
Patriotic is good is it? Some people use patriotism to rule over their people with an IRON fist. Never liked the word.
Not sure homosexuals and LGBT people are happy with him.
I suppose that actually there is a president today who really believes in that theory of sharing .. a president, who is functionally retarded without any doubts .. and if the people of this country allow to have a functionally retarded president, well, objectively, that people is definitely the most retarded of all ..
I actually studied Russian history and culture in college. It was my major until I realized how things are. Short answer: No, they know nothing, and they get away with knowing nothing because Americans know nothing about Russia so they tolerate insane lies. The most frightening of these beliefs is a recycled neocon classic straight out of Fail-Safe: that Russia doesn't "really" have nuclear weapons.
One day, Americans will just start identifying State Department personnel and murdering them in horrible public crowds, and no one will ask why.
NATO is a paper tiger. They are backed in a corner now. They are trying to save face in any way possible. The people of Europe are going to united against their prison guards and it ain't going to be pretty. And then they are going to throw off the chains of the USSA and we will be isolated from the Eurasian continent for good... Chip
It's propaganda. Not stupid; It was an "I gotcha." You can tell any lie you want to get your people to hate the enemy. Examples: Hillary saying Kadaifi gave his soldiers Viagra so they could rape the woman for hours and 911. God hates these liars who to stir up hatred to profit, and now to save themselves from retribution.
I've heard that Dr. Ken Zhal is very effective at what he does - 'surgical' is a word that's often used.
However, Dr. Ken apparently is also very elusive & difficult to track, has a habit of turning up unannounced at various locations taking everyone by complete surprise, and can have a highly explosive temperament.
ROTFLMAO...
A grasshopper walks into a bar and orders a single malt. The bartender remarks, "hey, we
have a drink named after you"! The grasshopper replies, "you have a drink called "Phil"? I'll grab my coat...
Yet he is reliable friend. Wish he would visit Mr Gates and his fellow psychopaths.
The sooner the better
He always carries a large scythe.
Who (what?) is Dr. Ken Zhal?
A dagger - "kinzhal"?
Our host is making a pun on one of the Russian wunderwaffen; cf "this HIMARS looks a bit off, it requires kalibration."
He's unstoppable and can't be bargained with.
It's a Bird... It's a Plane... It's Ken Zhal!
Thank you for keeping it all straight Simp. We laugh at the West Elite. One shouldn’t get too arrogant about that though. We have our work cut out for us. We are all knee deep in unreality. This is where the elites will seek refuge. Yes, of course it’s crazy.
The fall of Ukraine is going to make the fall of Saigon look like a trip to Disneyland.
Animal Mother and the "jolly green giants walking the earth..." So long, farewell"...see you in Ukraine!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iH5R4tgGdDk
The Russians have shed blood and I don't think the Russian people would be happy if Putin compromised and failed to deliver the objectives of the SMO.
Clearly, they have complete confidence that he will do exactly what is necessary.
They had complete confidence in the billions spent to create the Afghan Army.
You can count on one hand the milliseconds it took for the Afghan President to get out of Dodge. And on 2 hands the weeks it took for the Taliban, armed with rifles to take over the whole country.
A firm story doesn't negate a feather's worth of truth.
If they aren't going to retaliate for terrorist attacks or shoot reaper drones down then they may as well
They have retaliated and wiped out NATO officer types, western arms shipments/stores, degraded the Ukraine gid to collapse and now the NATO thugs have moved the flight path of drones from over the Black Sea to over NATO countries. To respond to a terrorist attack with a terrorist attack would be highly immoral.
Reaper drones are still flying in the black sea.
No they are not.
How do you know? I've not heard from any source. There is speculation from multiple sources (although maybe it is mostly VIPS) now that Russia declared the no-fly zone whether or not they would shoot down a manned aircraft or just drones.
I mean, the reports are as unreliable as how many ships the Houthis have sunk in the Red Sea.
I'm pretty sure VIPS would have said something beyond their speculation about what Russia might do in response to the Crimea Beach attack.
I've seen reports on several sites that are usually pretty accurate that there are none. There are possibly manned flights but they are not venturing very far out. Also, the Houthis have damaged and sunk ships. That's clearly true. They might have hit the Eisenhower, as well, but "mission accomplished", right?
I'm saying, "Show me one".
I didn't say the Houthis haven't sunk ships, I question "how many".
Just in case: VIPS -- Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. They are on Judge Naps show frequently. Often on Dialogue Works. Sometimes on the Duran and Danny Haiphong.
Yes, compare the Houthi situation. The US summoned an international task force. Then everybody dropped out one by one, most humiliatingly Britain. Then the Houyhis said they'd demonstrated something known since the beginning of naval aviation, the captain of our flagship demonstrated standard inept NAFO propaganda flailing, and we apparently chose to decamp for no reason.
It's like living in Nazi Germany and figuring out by omissions and movememts that we're getting our ass kicked. And, like Nazi Germany, we deserve it. The US loses every war it starts.
Yea they are. Guess you missed the crimean terrorist attack on yhe beach goers. Guess what? That was from a reaper drone. Guess what? Russia didn't do anything in retaliation for it. And I've saw reports of them flying in the black sea after that. And Russia is still afraid to shoot them down. It's pathetic
> Russia didn't do anything in retaliation for it.
How do you know? The fact that you have not heard/read anything about it does not necessarily mean it did not happen.
This general was in Ukraine 5 days before his body was "discovered" at 29 palms. There was a Kinzhal attack on an installation manned by US troops on that day. Total speculation as to whether or not this was "retaliation" LOL.
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2024/07/02/ncis-investigating-death-of-retired-general-found-twentynine-palms.html
The no-fly zone was declared after the beach attack. So your insult to "Saint Jimmy" is unwarranted.
You too, "show me one".
Hard for me to debate you without understanding the source of your information.
Was it the NYT, Pepe Escobar, Rachael Maddow, George Galloway, Sputnik.
The New Atlas was where I saw the video of a Predator being downed when a Russian jet dumped Jet fuel on it.
But if you do a web search you can find lots of references. What's "interesting" is how some outlets have to insist the jet collided with the drone.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/us-releases-video-russian-fighter-jet-colliding-drone-black-sea-rcna75221
A web search looking for whether or not the drones still patrol the Black Sea returns nothing conclusive.
The MSM is lying to you. Here's some examples:
You probably couldn't find an article about the real condition of the US Navy (although the VIPS often comment on the lack of Army preparedness.)
So I'll give you this one that is entitled: How The US Navy Has Been Defeated In The Red Sea.
https://indi.ca/how-us-navy-defeated/
The USN has abandoned the Red Sea. Run away in defeat. There are no USN ships in the Red Sea while the Eisenhower has just left Gibralter.
https://www.marinevesseltraffic.com/2013/02/military-ship-track.html
Of course, as Ritter says, the Ike was well over-extended on this tour which was over 9 months because, the USN is in such a sad state of repair. No resources to replace the Ike.
Feel free to provide evidence to the contrary.
The blowhards in Washington that you seem to listen to are lying to you.
They are the same ones telling you that Israel isn't committing genocide; that Ukraine is winning; that China is preparing "any day now" to invade Taiwan; and who insisted you take an unproven, untested vaccine for a bioterror virus that they themselves developed. They told you that Ivermectin wouldn't help although there is plenty of evidence it did and they refused to allow you the option of the much cheaper, traditionally developed, Chinese Vaccine that seems to be much more effective.
Compare the deaths in China with the death in the US.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
USA deaths/million was 4x the world number and 1000x the Chinese number.
Thanks...
And this hasn't stopped NATO one bit. Instead, they escalate further.