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."
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.
And right on cue: the nytimes starts trying to *step down* the cognitive dissonance an OTAN void will create w/ an op-ed--"NATO Has to Change. Here's How."
[link below]
I'll spare you the pervasive drek, but the op-edder states that "the indispensable nation has to be a bit less indispensable."
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.
When you understand a country's language, you come to comprehend it @ a much deeper level than you could otherwise, because a country's mother tongue is its most fundamental system: understanding its language system permits you to understand how it, the country & its people, work.
Kremlin Watchers & Putin Whisperers do not want to know the *real* Russia--they prefer the dark threat of existential alarm. They have no incentive to comprehend Russia in its essence, or to care
Like Mrs. Nuland told Mrs. Amanpour last March: "This is not the Russia we wanted."
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.
During the 1990s, what *had* been Russian Studies Programs in universities morphed into Ukrainian Studies Programs--but without a name change. The revisions to history began happening then, too, particularly surrounding the Soviet Union's role in WWII. Holodomor became top-of-mind then too.
Universities in Canada led the charge, but it quickly spread to the States.
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.
Twice during his sit-down w/ Stephanopoulis, Joe invoked the Lord Almighty. Ask & ye shall receive
It's as if we've experienced two Easters this year--the religious one in spring & now this summer one, our political Easter
In both instances we've wandered, shattered, through a desert of despair, seeking a hoped-for resurrection, a shift toward rebirth, doubting it could happen.
We know the Easter story & the empty tomb & all that it signifies.
For this, our political Easter, it's Good Friday afternoon--so there's no rejoicing yet. But elements have unquestionably tipped & veered in unforeseen but incontrovertible ways.
Russia is content to inflict massive casualties on the AFU while pushing forward interminably along the 1000km LOC. Once they clear Chasof Yar, they'll reach the final line of fortifications the AFU installed in 2014 w/ OTAN's help. Russia is in no hurry.
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.
Let's cut through the verbiage here. What is actually happening on the ground is that Russia is winning this war. The west, in fear of its own implosion and Ukraine simply downing tools, is rushing a narrative that Russia is in fact on the brink of defeat- not militarily of course. That is now too ridiculous for words. But at a diplomatic level!
Yeah, right. Hey, Russkies, why win when you can still lose?!!!!
The western spin blanket is designed to smother any discussion of Russia's remorseless advance and what that actually means. In this vein, observe the mutterings surfacing from Ukraine that the west never ever wanted to defeat Russia. Not really. So any immediate apparent win for Russia would be engineered by the west. It's all part of the greater western strategy, see! What a relief, eh! It is all going to plan.
We are watching in real time how the west is going to spin its own defeat. Still, the good news is that this defeat is coming, is now baked in. And as I have said elsewhere, it is coming before winter sets in.
The sooner the better. I think the Americans are trying to beat the Romans in having the most drawn out collapse of empire, adjusted for inflation of course.
They've even got their own mad emperor fiddling away, appealing to God to back him up, while all around them their empire crumbles. You could not make it up.
Actually it's a speed run. Romans took centuries to collapse, Americans world empire #1 status won't even hit a single century. Pax Romana >>>> Pax Americans. American hubris won't allow them to recognize that though. Importing foreigners to replace the natives, Legions falling apart, rampant money printing, lack of legitimacy in its central government, no common faith, language or culture. All from 1945 to now.
The US empire is an extension of the British empire whether or not you believe that British financial interests spawned the late 19C bankster clans of JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Warburgs, etc. The US deep state agents have associations with CFR/Chatham House, etc. Hence we keep hearing about "Anglo-Saxons" that also span across Australia, Canada, and NZ. Of course early on they couldn't help but decorate the capital with all kinds of Greco-Roman and occult references. E pluribus unum.
No problem believing that, just took the baton in 1945. But it's like counting all the successor empires from Rome itself at that point. Also, comparing peak to collapse, so Pax Americana vs Romana. Much longer for the latter
It's the pace of technological diffusion that has somewhat assisted the decline. US leadership in spite of warnings has felt that sending an aircraft carrier and fleet of ships would sort out the Houthis, but anti ship missiles have rendered them obsolete, so perhaps now they understand that the era of gunboat diplomacy is over.
My readers sometimes tire of my continual reporting of Lavrov's verbiage, but he often says things of great import, so he must be closely watched--even short answers to questions have meaning. He said little at Astana, but was asked this:
"Question: How important is it that Belarus is now together with us in the SCO?
"Sergey Lavrov: This is part of the Union State. We are interested in it participating in all international processes as a united front. In my opinion, everything is developing in the right direction here." https://mid.ru/ru/foreign_policy/news/1960736/
IMO, it's easy to be a Russia Watcher, which also means it's very difficult to lie about what's been said or done as the original source is almost always available to consult.
Upon further reading: You state the Azov Nazis won't allow peace without victory, meaning Zelensky can't negotiate at all, nor can anyone else or the Nazis will kill the effort literally. And that also means anyone from NATO/Outlaw US Empire will also die if they try, proving the Nazis must be destroyed so peace can become possible. IMO, team Putin know that very well.
To finish my comment, Ukraine will be solved to Russia's satisfaction. The mutiny within Europe is now gathering pace with Orban saying the three most powerful words that will find many supporters:
"Europe Needs Peace."
And what does that desire implicitly reject? The answer ought to be self-evident.
In boosting the hardest ultra-national elements--the Azov, Right Sector & Svoboda types--the U.S.-led OTAN has nourished a significant terror cell @ the heart of Ukraine: an intractable Bandera-devoted anarchic kill-squad.
There have been very few "terrorist" groups making the news with their activities during the last century which were not financed & used (and often were created by) some government or other- Even low intensity conflict takes a lot of resources and coordination. The whole of my childhood, all those splashy front page worthy atrocities and communist/anarchist actions in Europe? Nearly all now are known to have been false flags by the descendants of Gladio or other CIA/State Dept. controlled "assets". I'm waiting for the day we find out who exactly was responsible for the SLA coming into existence and their choice of actions- The first thing those buggers did was murder a black educator who had effectively engaged in his cities community politics, improved city schools in Philadelphia and Oakland and had become Oakland's superintendent of schools- Really not the kind of target a genuine 1960s radical would choose at all- But anathema to the kind of asshole the CIA was populated by and their program to dumb down & destroy USA public education's irritating tendency to teach "little people" people how to reason and most especially prevent any class based political cohesiveness among the USA's largest minorities and average working class white people.
Just like the original Bandera and his gang, the Azov neo-Nazi leadership will happily escape to some Western countries to write memoirs once the war is lost. None of them are actually going to fight to the last man.
Ukrainians, for all their stubbornness and current hoodwinking by the GAE are made of pretty tough stuff, and I wouldn't discount the possibility of the perpetrators of the slaughter of its nation's men being eventually hunted down and dispatched by survivors of the slaughter when the blinders finally come off.
I agree. Ukrainians are made of pretty tough material. At what point will they be able to see that they've made a bargain with the devil though? I would love to see them turn that toughness and ferocity upon their masters. At present they're like hapless monkeys chained to Uncle Schmul's accordion-organ dancing to the 'Devil's Trill'.
Trump has a very ambitious set of goals when he wins the Presidency, but sadly, whatever he does want to do, or even is able to do, is not terribly relevant.
The neocons and neolibs and warhawks and MIC whores know full well that they just have to wait 4 years, and Trump will be gone. That has been the consistent pattern. A big part of Project 2025 is precisely to try and root out the representatives of the above from the federal bureaucracies, intel agencies and what not.
Putin would be a fool to rely on any form of long term settlement, even signed agreements, from the US. He will talk, he might even agree to something, but there is no chance that Russia will give the West or Ukraine any chance to repeat the Minsk 2 nonsense.
The USA is screaming about its importance with a heavy jewish accent. There, fascism on the match is led by jewish fascists in diaspora and their forever-terrorists Israeli thugs in power. The Knesset on Potomac feels omnipotent and responsive to AIPAC money and jewish blackmailing oligarchs only.
It would be a pity if Trump becomes American Zelensky - a big nothingness and sock puppet for the gangster corporations like blackrock and the dishonorable MIC.
All major jewish organizations and the supremacism-oriented jewish schools and departments must be banned. Time to investigate the main tenets of shoah business.
Has it occurred to you that a smoothly functioning USA government working towards the actual physical & social needs of average USA people (rather than catering to ownership/oligarch class profitability) might have been the only opponent huge multinational corporations feared after USSR self destructed??? First, they eliminated the "international communist threat". Then, "they" needed to dismantle the weapon used for that task, can't have any potential rival power structures which might someday cramp their actions/profits/acquisition of control over every resource in the world.
I freely admit the thought has not crossed my mind.
The reasons why include, but are not limited to: those ~500 US military bases all around the world, the NSA cyberspying program, the carrier-centric Navy, the fact many, if not most, important financing deals are done under US jurisdiction.
What I see is that US government institutions are the muscle that propels "the oligarch class" into the World, destroys all opposition to that "oligarch class" and keeps said "oligarch class" in place even while locals want to get it out.
> (...) can't have any potential rival power structures (...)
As far as I can see, USA **IS** the oligarchy. It can't destroy itself.
A very small fraction of the USA population is the oligarchy and rather less than 20% of americans (and that % rapidly going down of late) are much benefitting/becoming more materially well off from their program. The rest of us are variously coopted, suborned, distracted and being drained of our resources, time on earth to attend to our own interests and all future prospects. By my standards, "they" have been a separate command structure since the era of rich businessmen's sons serving in the US military being socially approved & EXPECTED in wartime ended.
Somebody is running the show, the rest just want good jobs, a loving spouse, good kids, a nice house, a nice car, clean and safe neighbourhoods, vacation time....
Somebody is getting blown up from airstrikes, launched from a carrier, that was made in a US shipyard, by workers that were fed by US farmers. They share responsibility. Not equally, obviously, but given that USA has been on the warpath for a long time, all those American salarymen can't ultimately be excused. Those who are in control can't do anything without the bottom layer that just wants to live and let live. It is a paradox.
Take a look at this woman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMIgnzQoorc She's living in middle of nowhere, and we can presume she's against all sorts of stuff "the oligarchy" has been doing. Yet - while I HAVE NO DEFINITIVE PROOF OF THIS - she SEEMS to be involved in making seed corn. Now "making seed corn" doesn't seem all that bad, until you learn of something called "the kill switch", and how it can jeopardize the survival of entire nations. Again emphasis: I don't actually have proof SHE HERSELF is actually making kill-switched seed corn, but it's a safe bet that if she's making seed corn, that corn is GMO corn, which in turn is almost certainly kill-switched. Basically, a kill switch is a genetic switch in GMO plants, that is inactive in corn that grows up from seed-corn seed, but becomes active in the offspring of that corn. The kill switch kills the plant before it creates it's seed. Be effect of this is that, if you buy seed corn from USA, you can't propagate those plan lineages further. This is used to "protect intellectual property" of Agri MegaCorps.
Now this is all fine and dandy, but what happens when "the oligarchy" uses various methods to kill off the native seed lineages of nations? Like, for example, by dumping - offering seed corn at prices far below what the native producers, or competitors, can handle? Then, the nation becomes defacto enslaved by USA. If they don't do what USA tells them to do, the USA will simply not send them the seed for the next harvest. And if they try planting the seed they already have, all the plants will die. I've been told this is the situation Indonesia finds itself in, although that information is from ~2005, so maybe it freed itself by now.
At any rate, what does Laura know of that? Yet it is her, and her work, that makes it all possible.
I grow heirloom, non hybrid, non GMO seeds for fun (and to use, give away to neighbors & family). Keeping them from accidentally crossing with (Monsanto & etc.) genetically modified plants is something I try to do. Lucked out this year, nearest farm field was too wet to plant, so I've got Mandan bride corn and Tankuro black edamame soybeans growing out for seed.
I do know what the dumping of USA corn after NAFTA did to Mexican food crop biodiversity (and most of their agricultural workers, many of who are now slaving away at menial jobs in USA).
US = Empire. I tell people this all the time here. You are benefiting from the fruits of empire. If the US abandons the way of Empire you will likely be materially poorer, especially in the short term. Spiritually and morally is a different matter. It's like the left saying we could defund the military for 'more money for dem programs' and live like the peak Nordic socialist model. When the US military was proping up the US dollar all along.
I mean that USA is ripping apart. It consists of several polities that see the world in completely different ways, and are becoming unable to find a common tongue.
I expect USA to split into 2-3 independent states, approximately during 2030-2035.
I have said, for years now, that the main thing uniting the widely disparate regions of the US and its heterogeneous people is the American Dream.
But there definitely are a lot of structural issues that make it really hard for the splits that you outline to occur.
Among them: how do the secessionary regions replace the currency, taxation, defense, and the pretty significant internal domestic trade?
I don't see shooting civil wars over abortion, for example. What is the issue that divides both culturally and economically like slavery, that deepens divisions?
Right now the fight is mostly who gets the biggest parts of the pork barrel.
What happens when USD gets destroyed through hyperinflation? Not only will the entire financial sector reset, but a large section of the economy will get wiped out. Even if you don't subscribe to the idea USD will get hyperinflated away, a huge percent of US GDP is imports "balanced" by exporting USD. https://treeofwoe.substack.com/p/is-the-petrodollar-system-dead That works for the time being, because the Petrodollar is still mostly alive. But the Petrodollar is going away, and when it does, all sorts of imports will go away too, meaning Americans will have a ton of less stuff to buy, apparently as much as 50%.
For some reason, two unrelated people have independently quoted Yugoslavia to me in the last 24 hours, so I guess I'll pass the fad forward. :)
SFRY was in many ways similar to USA, in that it consisted of people that didn't really get along, it was subjected to a 10-year long economic crisis (in SFRY's case, brough about because it was running a current account deficit since ~1960 and financed it by foreign debt - eventually the balloning debts had to be repaid) and eventually this economic crisis resulted in the implosion of the currency and a collapse of the living standard.
What happens when the American Dream, the vanton materialism and consumerism, comes to a halt? What happens if that consumerism stops in a span of 1-2 years? How long before "the Right", flyover states, start beliving they can't consume because "the Left", coast states, conspired to deprive them of goods? How long before "the Left" starts beliving it was "the Right" that conspired to deprive them of goods? You know what happened during COVID-19. Now imagine if - FOR NO APPARENT REASON - in a span of 12 months people all over the country have to cut down their enjoyment of goods by over a half? Instead of buying a new smartphone every two years, you are FORCED - by no obvious force - to buy them every four years. How often do people buy new cars? Internet tells me it's about 6 years in USA. Imagine if that doubles, to 12 years. And the doubling happens in a span of a year. At least half of people suddenly realize they can't buy a new car this year. And people can't see any obvious reason for this sudden and massive impoverishment.
How soon before they start blaming someone? How long before "conspiracy" becomes the most sensible explanation for most people? And finally the million-dollar question. How long before they decide to take back what is rightfully theirs, from these "conspirators"?
Lot of "ifs" there, just sayin'? I think they can print for quite a while still. Petrodollar demise is exaggerated imho. MBS is not cutting out dollars, just adding more acceptable currencies, mostly from the BRICS side. People will modify buying habits or go broke, it's happened before. They'll find out that complaining about an "old" phone is not going to get them anywhere.
I don't see any credible case for the USD being "destroyed" - perhaps you can define more clearly what you mean.
To me, destroyed means something between Zimbabwe's peak hyperinflation and present day Argentina. The problem is that the USD is not going to hit either of these boundaries.
Yes, the USD will continue to erode in purchasing power - but it is not actually very much more or less than what is happening all over the West.
Equally, your example of dollars used to pay for the US trade deficit is actually the literal opposite: if other countries are accepting junk US dollars to send their real stuff - the US dollar is hardly being destroyed. Only if foreign countries and people start refusing dollars would the case for destruction be possible - and I don't see that happening in the least either now or in the short or even medium term future. Don't confuse de-dollarization with refusing the "legally acceptable to repay all debts, public and private" quality which is what truly underlies the USD's position.
SFRY: whatever the economic case, using it as an example of a breakup is a terrible one because Yugoslavia was an artificial nation literally built out of centuries and millenia old ethnicities - many of which hated each other. So no, sorry, not a useful comparable in any way.
If anything, Russia's 1990s experience shows what a historically unified nation can undergo and not break up.
American Dream: consumerism is not the American Dream. Neither is materialism. The American Dream is the belief that if you work hard and keep your nose clean, that your life will get better and your children's lives will get better. And the failure of the American Dream is already here: the post Y2K generations all believe, very validly, that their lives are going to be measurably worse than their parents'.
So yes, there is anger and suffering and pain and all that but you're not going to convince me that what Americans are going through now - a 2+ decade austerity squeeze - is in any way worse than Russia's lost 1990s decade.
You're also not going to convince me that the US is going to go through what Russia did in the 1990s where average lifespans for men dropped by double digits. 100K Americans are dying of opioid overdoses a year and the American lifespan is only flat.
I would also repeat that many Americans are already angry. The votes for Obama's first term and Trump's first term are precisely protest votes.
As for taking back what is theirs - how exactly is that going to happen? You seem to think it will be some kind of French Revolution complete with guillotines. I simply am not seeing that now; the suffering that Americans have gone through is nothing like being starving peasants in the pre-French Revolution era.
The thing is precisely that Mother Nature often doesn't care what people of influence and authority care, want, or think. She has her own way, and her own way of doing things. That's what I'm about when I write about USD hyperinflation. It doesn't matter what TPTB think. They're either going to play by the rules, that Mother Nature sets unilateraly, or Mother Nature will have her own way with them.
Exactly. There are no such Princesses, and even a conciliatory Trump (not any kind of a guarantee it would happen) could offer any assurances beyond the end of his term, should he be elected, in 2028.
Even during a Trump presidential term - the intel agencies and what not are more than capable of defying Presidential orders and shipping weapons and other assistance to Ukraine on their own.
Because he says the quiet parts out loud? Because he requires constant minding? Because Our European Puppets are long used to groveling before senile figureheads, but they might well question orders if they come from a gauche jackass?
An objective analysis of US policy prior to Trump 2016 would show, among other things:
1) That Europe was free riding in NATO. Trump fixed that, and now the Europeans are finally waking up to the reality that they cannot underspend on defense forever - particularly if they are going to keep poking bears.
2) That China is a rival to the US and an economic threat. The wall of Chinese money had kept this realization from surfacing for decades - in Hollywood in particular - but Trump broke the ice.
3) Afghanistan. Trump pushed hard for withdrawing the troops and is clearly a major reason why it finally happened.
4) North Korea. Which part of talking with Kim Jong Il was ever part of the neocon strategy?
AS for gauche jackass - do you seriously think Trump is any worse than Dubya? lol
I am amused at how you style yourself "objective",and even if your statements were accurate, they aren't a reason the neocons would want to keep Trump out of the White House.
Meanwhile, note how the election of Obama did more to neuter the antiwar movement in europe and the US than anything Dick Cheney could have done, even if he were made president for life. A CIA analysis supposedly reached a similar conclusion in 2008.
I am objective in how I analyze - it does not mean I do not have my own preferences or opinions.
Your biases, for example, are transparently obvious but poorly supported by any evidence you have provided.
Nor is your own thinking about neocons and Trump, demonstrating any better analytical performance. Whether it is operational or cultural or personal - only a moron could possibly think that the gyrations the Deep State has gone through to keep Trump from acting during his first term, and from getting elected to a second term, are not trivially obvious evidence of Deep State antipathy for Trump.
Nor is your analysis of Obama, any better. There is a very trivial explanation for the anti-war movement's pass on Obama: they are allowed to protest only when a conservative is in office. The media, the self-styled meritocratic elites, the university professors, most but not all of the federal bureaucracy - they are liberal. If a Democrat starts wars and kills people - that's fine. Only those bad Republicans are the baby killers and war mongers.
The draconian suppression of Gaza protests by the mainstream media, university presidents and the ongoing inability to see genocide/atrocity in Gaza are yet more pieces of evidence of the institutional biased nature of the anti-war movement. Note I am not saying all the anti-war people are such - I am saying that the genuine ones among them only enjoyed prominence and social success when it was convenient.
I think Putin is trying to establish the level of treachery and insincerity by the west to build his case why Russia's terms have to be draconian to afford Russia any true security. Also explains his incremental war of attrition as opposed to a massive crushing one-fell-swoop invasion which would alarm the rest of the world.
This combined with the NATO' s reneged Minsk accords, the dropped Turkey Peace plan, and the steady encroachment on its borders with addition of Finland to NATO. Translation: Russia will have to take even more land to create a wider buffer zone- which will cost Russia more, but that is what will be necessary. The West has poisoned the well for chances of any long term peace and stability and it will take generations, if ever, for this to reverse.
Once AFU collapse is imminent, I surely hope VVP picks up the pace a bit. He'll need a lot more troops and they'll have a much more territory to cover.
BTW the "actor from the 95th quarter" is Zelensky, referring to his company "95 Kvartal" that produced his hit TV show and then became the source for his chief of staff and other toadies.
It's obvious that Ukraine would only willingly give up territory and withdraw from the 4 regions if it's ready for serious negotiations of a permanent peace deal. It makes sense why Russia would set this precondition for a ceasefire.
The Azov leadership are probably CIA assets like Al Qaeda and ISIS.
There are over 3,800 US documents, on US government websites, released through US FOIA requests, revealing US support for fascism in Ukraine started before the end of WWII and continued through 1991 unabated. Since 1991 there are numerous photos of US officials meeting with fascists in Ukraine like the head of Svoboda, Oleh Yaroslavovych Tyahnybok, coupled with V. Nuland openly discussing Tyahnybok's merit and use in 2014. There is a great deal of concrete evidence of US support for fascism in Ukraine from US sources. There is no need for talking points from anyone or any other country but the US. Yet, most reporters or journalists don't even make the effort.
Andriy Parubiy, the leader on the Ukrainian Nazi Party, had functioned as a commandant of the Nuland-Kagan putsch in 2014. It looks as if the whole Banderite (neo-Nazi) upper echelon of Ukrainian army has been bought by the US fascists in high places. Kretevich et al have self-transformed into Israeliviches while still pretending to be Slavs. They are not. Jews, both local and Straussians, have corrupted Ukraine and Ukrainians to a deadly degree.
And Soros, for whom Krystia Freeland's mother Halyna worked in the 70's. Krystia is the only successor to Liberal Justin in Canada so far. The cancer has advanced over time, thank God finally some treatment is being applied. But who will denazify Canada, and when?
After his Covid Scam/Trucker/Jackboot/War Measures impulses along with his female codependent in tow, Trudeaus is 20% below the Conservatives in the polls. Dead meat.
And yet, the next election may turn out like the one just done in the UK. Yes, the Conservatives imploded, Labour triumphed. Were priorities and behavior of the government modified? Hell, no. Starmer comes out with Project Ukraine as the #1 priority, we'll get around to the common rabble's problems if we have time later. What significant changes do you think will happen if Canadian Conservatives win big in how your government is run?
It's here too, and not in the leftist bs way. Everything for the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State. Of course, the State = US oligarchy/kakistocracy.
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."
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.
And right on cue: the nytimes starts trying to *step down* the cognitive dissonance an OTAN void will create w/ an op-ed--"NATO Has to Change. Here's How."
[link below]
I'll spare you the pervasive drek, but the op-edder states that "the indispensable nation has to be a bit less indispensable."
Cope incoming
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/07/opinion/nato-europe-us-ukraine-defense.html
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.
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.
They don't speak Russian either.
When you understand a country's language, you come to comprehend it @ a much deeper level than you could otherwise, because a country's mother tongue is its most fundamental system: understanding its language system permits you to understand how it, the country & its people, work.
Kremlin Watchers & Putin Whisperers do not want to know the *real* Russia--they prefer the dark threat of existential alarm. They have no incentive to comprehend Russia in its essence, or to care
Like Mrs. Nuland told Mrs. Amanpour last March: "This is not the Russia we wanted."
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.
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.
During the 1990s, what *had* been Russian Studies Programs in universities morphed into Ukrainian Studies Programs--but without a name change. The revisions to history began happening then, too, particularly surrounding the Soviet Union's role in WWII. Holodomor became top-of-mind then too.
Universities in Canada led the charge, but it quickly spread to the States.
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.
Dr. Ken Zhal & Dr. Jill walk into a bar...
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.
No holy place is ever empty.
Twice during his sit-down w/ Stephanopoulis, Joe invoked the Lord Almighty. Ask & ye shall receive
It's as if we've experienced two Easters this year--the religious one in spring & now this summer one, our political Easter
In both instances we've wandered, shattered, through a desert of despair, seeking a hoped-for resurrection, a shift toward rebirth, doubting it could happen.
We know the Easter story & the empty tomb & all that it signifies.
For this, our political Easter, it's Good Friday afternoon--so there's no rejoicing yet. But elements have unquestionably tipped & veered in unforeseen but incontrovertible ways.
Mountain-building
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.
Russia is content to inflict massive casualties on the AFU while pushing forward interminably along the 1000km LOC. Once they clear Chasof Yar, they'll reach the final line of fortifications the AFU installed in 2014 w/ OTAN's help. Russia is in no hurry.
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.
Let's cut through the verbiage here. What is actually happening on the ground is that Russia is winning this war. The west, in fear of its own implosion and Ukraine simply downing tools, is rushing a narrative that Russia is in fact on the brink of defeat- not militarily of course. That is now too ridiculous for words. But at a diplomatic level!
Yeah, right. Hey, Russkies, why win when you can still lose?!!!!
The western spin blanket is designed to smother any discussion of Russia's remorseless advance and what that actually means. In this vein, observe the mutterings surfacing from Ukraine that the west never ever wanted to defeat Russia. Not really. So any immediate apparent win for Russia would be engineered by the west. It's all part of the greater western strategy, see! What a relief, eh! It is all going to plan.
We are watching in real time how the west is going to spin its own defeat. Still, the good news is that this defeat is coming, is now baked in. And as I have said elsewhere, it is coming before winter sets in.
The west is Narrating to Nowhere, cueing up the predictable misdirection: Putin is desperate! Putin is begging! Putin is whining!
Instead of speaking directly w/ VVP, OTAN-niks prefer to read the tea leaves, engage in wishcasting & indulge in magical thinking.
Orban's visit was a diplomatic victory for VVP, a nice glaze of frosting on the tasty battlefield cake the Russian Forces chow down on daily
'Narrating to Nowhere' is good - is one of your's? if so bravo!
Orban demonstrated that there are people in Europe that are not eagerly waiting for their next U.S. dog dish at meal time.
The sooner the better. I think the Americans are trying to beat the Romans in having the most drawn out collapse of empire, adjusted for inflation of course.
They've even got their own mad emperor fiddling away, appealing to God to back him up, while all around them their empire crumbles. You could not make it up.
Just wait for him to make a senator out of a horse.
I think that already happened when Hillary became a senator...
Actually it's a speed run. Romans took centuries to collapse, Americans world empire #1 status won't even hit a single century. Pax Romana >>>> Pax Americans. American hubris won't allow them to recognize that though. Importing foreigners to replace the natives, Legions falling apart, rampant money printing, lack of legitimacy in its central government, no common faith, language or culture. All from 1945 to now.
The US empire is an extension of the British empire whether or not you believe that British financial interests spawned the late 19C bankster clans of JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Warburgs, etc. The US deep state agents have associations with CFR/Chatham House, etc. Hence we keep hearing about "Anglo-Saxons" that also span across Australia, Canada, and NZ. Of course early on they couldn't help but decorate the capital with all kinds of Greco-Roman and occult references. E pluribus unum.
No problem believing that, just took the baton in 1945. But it's like counting all the successor empires from Rome itself at that point. Also, comparing peak to collapse, so Pax Americana vs Romana. Much longer for the latter
Let me put it this way; the US empire and state is like its fast food, it passes through the system rather quickly.
The U.S. Empire hasn't lasted as long as it took for Rome to decline from it's peak.
But American Bread and Circuses have been spectacular.
It's the pace of technological diffusion that has somewhat assisted the decline. US leadership in spite of warnings has felt that sending an aircraft carrier and fleet of ships would sort out the Houthis, but anti ship missiles have rendered them obsolete, so perhaps now they understand that the era of gunboat diplomacy is over.
Regarding the Putin/Orban chat, either go to the official source or to my substack for I translate and report all such events, "Putin Meets Orban: European Mutiny Continues," https://karlof1.substack.com/p/putin-meets-orban-european-mutiny
My readers sometimes tire of my continual reporting of Lavrov's verbiage, but he often says things of great import, so he must be closely watched--even short answers to questions have meaning. He said little at Astana, but was asked this:
"Question: How important is it that Belarus is now together with us in the SCO?
"Sergey Lavrov: This is part of the Union State. We are interested in it participating in all international processes as a united front. In my opinion, everything is developing in the right direction here." https://mid.ru/ru/foreign_policy/news/1960736/
IMO, it's easy to be a Russia Watcher, which also means it's very difficult to lie about what's been said or done as the original source is almost always available to consult.
Upon further reading: You state the Azov Nazis won't allow peace without victory, meaning Zelensky can't negotiate at all, nor can anyone else or the Nazis will kill the effort literally. And that also means anyone from NATO/Outlaw US Empire will also die if they try, proving the Nazis must be destroyed so peace can become possible. IMO, team Putin know that very well.
To finish my comment, Ukraine will be solved to Russia's satisfaction. The mutiny within Europe is now gathering pace with Orban saying the three most powerful words that will find many supporters:
"Europe Needs Peace."
And what does that desire implicitly reject? The answer ought to be self-evident.
In boosting the hardest ultra-national elements--the Azov, Right Sector & Svoboda types--the U.S.-led OTAN has nourished a significant terror cell @ the heart of Ukraine: an intractable Bandera-devoted anarchic kill-squad.
There's a war inside the war
Isn't that how the US always does it? They love creating and financing terror groups.
Indeed, the bloody CIA, the biggest terrorist funding organization in the world.
CIA & Mossad, parents of ISIS and so many other bastards.
@Jeanniery
There have been very few "terrorist" groups making the news with their activities during the last century which were not financed & used (and often were created by) some government or other- Even low intensity conflict takes a lot of resources and coordination. The whole of my childhood, all those splashy front page worthy atrocities and communist/anarchist actions in Europe? Nearly all now are known to have been false flags by the descendants of Gladio or other CIA/State Dept. controlled "assets". I'm waiting for the day we find out who exactly was responsible for the SLA coming into existence and their choice of actions- The first thing those buggers did was murder a black educator who had effectively engaged in his cities community politics, improved city schools in Philadelphia and Oakland and had become Oakland's superintendent of schools- Really not the kind of target a genuine 1960s radical would choose at all- But anathema to the kind of asshole the CIA was populated by and their program to dumb down & destroy USA public education's irritating tendency to teach "little people" people how to reason and most especially prevent any class based political cohesiveness among the USA's largest minorities and average working class white people.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcus_Foster
Just like the original Bandera and his gang, the Azov neo-Nazi leadership will happily escape to some Western countries to write memoirs once the war is lost. None of them are actually going to fight to the last man.
Something tells me they will be given a short respite and then meet a rather nasty and
I dunno, Ghani is alive and well. Saakashvili would be, if he hadn't gone back to Georgia like a tomfool.
They perhaps haven't heard of Operation Nemesis.
Ukrainians, for all their stubbornness and current hoodwinking by the GAE are made of pretty tough stuff, and I wouldn't discount the possibility of the perpetrators of the slaughter of its nation's men being eventually hunted down and dispatched by survivors of the slaughter when the blinders finally come off.
I agree. Ukrainians are made of pretty tough material. At what point will they be able to see that they've made a bargain with the devil though? I would love to see them turn that toughness and ferocity upon their masters. At present they're like hapless monkeys chained to Uncle Schmul's accordion-organ dancing to the 'Devil's Trill'.
Yes, they don't give a damn about the people of Ukraine suffering. I hope they can be hunted down like their predecessors were.
I am very, very grateful for your diligent work. Thank you.
I liked his retort to that creep from the BBC who again turned up to ask stupid questions.
Trump has a very ambitious set of goals when he wins the Presidency, but sadly, whatever he does want to do, or even is able to do, is not terribly relevant.
The neocons and neolibs and warhawks and MIC whores know full well that they just have to wait 4 years, and Trump will be gone. That has been the consistent pattern. A big part of Project 2025 is precisely to try and root out the representatives of the above from the federal bureaucracies, intel agencies and what not.
Putin would be a fool to rely on any form of long term settlement, even signed agreements, from the US. He will talk, he might even agree to something, but there is no chance that Russia will give the West or Ukraine any chance to repeat the Minsk 2 nonsense.
The US is not going to gain back trust from most people, let alone Russia, for a long time.
Russia is leading the way for others to just turn away and leave the US screaming about how important they are.
A generation @ least, as Lavrov said about the length of time it would take to normalize relations again w/ the West.
Promising collaborations & win-win opportunities await Russia eastward & w/ the Global Majority
The USA is screaming about its importance with a heavy jewish accent. There, fascism on the match is led by jewish fascists in diaspora and their forever-terrorists Israeli thugs in power. The Knesset on Potomac feels omnipotent and responsive to AIPAC money and jewish blackmailing oligarchs only.
It would be a pity if Trump becomes American Zelensky - a big nothingness and sock puppet for the gangster corporations like blackrock and the dishonorable MIC.
All major jewish organizations and the supremacism-oriented jewish schools and departments must be banned. Time to investigate the main tenets of shoah business.
> Time to investigate the main tenets of shoah business.
Good point. Like the late ZioNazi minister of Foreign Affairs said: "there is no business like Shoah business".
At this point, USA has to SURVIVE.
@groddlo
Has it occurred to you that a smoothly functioning USA government working towards the actual physical & social needs of average USA people (rather than catering to ownership/oligarch class profitability) might have been the only opponent huge multinational corporations feared after USSR self destructed??? First, they eliminated the "international communist threat". Then, "they" needed to dismantle the weapon used for that task, can't have any potential rival power structures which might someday cramp their actions/profits/acquisition of control over every resource in the world.
I freely admit the thought has not crossed my mind.
The reasons why include, but are not limited to: those ~500 US military bases all around the world, the NSA cyberspying program, the carrier-centric Navy, the fact many, if not most, important financing deals are done under US jurisdiction.
What I see is that US government institutions are the muscle that propels "the oligarch class" into the World, destroys all opposition to that "oligarch class" and keeps said "oligarch class" in place even while locals want to get it out.
> (...) can't have any potential rival power structures (...)
As far as I can see, USA **IS** the oligarchy. It can't destroy itself.
A very small fraction of the USA population is the oligarchy and rather less than 20% of americans (and that % rapidly going down of late) are much benefitting/becoming more materially well off from their program. The rest of us are variously coopted, suborned, distracted and being drained of our resources, time on earth to attend to our own interests and all future prospects. By my standards, "they" have been a separate command structure since the era of rich businessmen's sons serving in the US military being socially approved & EXPECTED in wartime ended.
Somebody is running the show, the rest just want good jobs, a loving spouse, good kids, a nice house, a nice car, clean and safe neighbourhoods, vacation time....
Somebody is getting blown up from airstrikes, launched from a carrier, that was made in a US shipyard, by workers that were fed by US farmers. They share responsibility. Not equally, obviously, but given that USA has been on the warpath for a long time, all those American salarymen can't ultimately be excused. Those who are in control can't do anything without the bottom layer that just wants to live and let live. It is a paradox.
Take a look at this woman: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMIgnzQoorc She's living in middle of nowhere, and we can presume she's against all sorts of stuff "the oligarchy" has been doing. Yet - while I HAVE NO DEFINITIVE PROOF OF THIS - she SEEMS to be involved in making seed corn. Now "making seed corn" doesn't seem all that bad, until you learn of something called "the kill switch", and how it can jeopardize the survival of entire nations. Again emphasis: I don't actually have proof SHE HERSELF is actually making kill-switched seed corn, but it's a safe bet that if she's making seed corn, that corn is GMO corn, which in turn is almost certainly kill-switched. Basically, a kill switch is a genetic switch in GMO plants, that is inactive in corn that grows up from seed-corn seed, but becomes active in the offspring of that corn. The kill switch kills the plant before it creates it's seed. Be effect of this is that, if you buy seed corn from USA, you can't propagate those plan lineages further. This is used to "protect intellectual property" of Agri MegaCorps.
Now this is all fine and dandy, but what happens when "the oligarchy" uses various methods to kill off the native seed lineages of nations? Like, for example, by dumping - offering seed corn at prices far below what the native producers, or competitors, can handle? Then, the nation becomes defacto enslaved by USA. If they don't do what USA tells them to do, the USA will simply not send them the seed for the next harvest. And if they try planting the seed they already have, all the plants will die. I've been told this is the situation Indonesia finds itself in, although that information is from ~2005, so maybe it freed itself by now.
At any rate, what does Laura know of that? Yet it is her, and her work, that makes it all possible.
I grow heirloom, non hybrid, non GMO seeds for fun (and to use, give away to neighbors & family). Keeping them from accidentally crossing with (Monsanto & etc.) genetically modified plants is something I try to do. Lucked out this year, nearest farm field was too wet to plant, so I've got Mandan bride corn and Tankuro black edamame soybeans growing out for seed.
I do know what the dumping of USA corn after NAFTA did to Mexican food crop biodiversity (and most of their agricultural workers, many of who are now slaving away at menial jobs in USA).
US = Empire. I tell people this all the time here. You are benefiting from the fruits of empire. If the US abandons the way of Empire you will likely be materially poorer, especially in the short term. Spiritually and morally is a different matter. It's like the left saying we could defund the military for 'more money for dem programs' and live like the peak Nordic socialist model. When the US military was proping up the US dollar all along.
The private sector American Middle Class will be materially richer. The Service/Government and Skimming/Banker/Rentier Class will be poorer.
I don't know what you mean.
The US has no existential threats to its existence outside of its incessant warmongering abroad.
Canada? Mexico? Cuba? Venezuela? None of these are remotely a threat.
Furthermore the US has energy and food.
All things considered: if US foreign entanglements disappeared magically tomorrow, the US would be in a far, far better position.
I mean that USA is ripping apart. It consists of several polities that see the world in completely different ways, and are becoming unable to find a common tongue.
I expect USA to split into 2-3 independent states, approximately during 2030-2035.
I have said, for years now, that the main thing uniting the widely disparate regions of the US and its heterogeneous people is the American Dream.
But there definitely are a lot of structural issues that make it really hard for the splits that you outline to occur.
Among them: how do the secessionary regions replace the currency, taxation, defense, and the pretty significant internal domestic trade?
I don't see shooting civil wars over abortion, for example. What is the issue that divides both culturally and economically like slavery, that deepens divisions?
Right now the fight is mostly who gets the biggest parts of the pork barrel.
What happens when USD gets destroyed through hyperinflation? Not only will the entire financial sector reset, but a large section of the economy will get wiped out. Even if you don't subscribe to the idea USD will get hyperinflated away, a huge percent of US GDP is imports "balanced" by exporting USD. https://treeofwoe.substack.com/p/is-the-petrodollar-system-dead That works for the time being, because the Petrodollar is still mostly alive. But the Petrodollar is going away, and when it does, all sorts of imports will go away too, meaning Americans will have a ton of less stuff to buy, apparently as much as 50%.
For some reason, two unrelated people have independently quoted Yugoslavia to me in the last 24 hours, so I guess I'll pass the fad forward. :)
SFRY was in many ways similar to USA, in that it consisted of people that didn't really get along, it was subjected to a 10-year long economic crisis (in SFRY's case, brough about because it was running a current account deficit since ~1960 and financed it by foreign debt - eventually the balloning debts had to be repaid) and eventually this economic crisis resulted in the implosion of the currency and a collapse of the living standard.
What happens when the American Dream, the vanton materialism and consumerism, comes to a halt? What happens if that consumerism stops in a span of 1-2 years? How long before "the Right", flyover states, start beliving they can't consume because "the Left", coast states, conspired to deprive them of goods? How long before "the Left" starts beliving it was "the Right" that conspired to deprive them of goods? You know what happened during COVID-19. Now imagine if - FOR NO APPARENT REASON - in a span of 12 months people all over the country have to cut down their enjoyment of goods by over a half? Instead of buying a new smartphone every two years, you are FORCED - by no obvious force - to buy them every four years. How often do people buy new cars? Internet tells me it's about 6 years in USA. Imagine if that doubles, to 12 years. And the doubling happens in a span of a year. At least half of people suddenly realize they can't buy a new car this year. And people can't see any obvious reason for this sudden and massive impoverishment.
How soon before they start blaming someone? How long before "conspiracy" becomes the most sensible explanation for most people? And finally the million-dollar question. How long before they decide to take back what is rightfully theirs, from these "conspirators"?
Lot of "ifs" there, just sayin'? I think they can print for quite a while still. Petrodollar demise is exaggerated imho. MBS is not cutting out dollars, just adding more acceptable currencies, mostly from the BRICS side. People will modify buying habits or go broke, it's happened before. They'll find out that complaining about an "old" phone is not going to get them anywhere.
I don't see any credible case for the USD being "destroyed" - perhaps you can define more clearly what you mean.
To me, destroyed means something between Zimbabwe's peak hyperinflation and present day Argentina. The problem is that the USD is not going to hit either of these boundaries.
Yes, the USD will continue to erode in purchasing power - but it is not actually very much more or less than what is happening all over the West.
Equally, your example of dollars used to pay for the US trade deficit is actually the literal opposite: if other countries are accepting junk US dollars to send their real stuff - the US dollar is hardly being destroyed. Only if foreign countries and people start refusing dollars would the case for destruction be possible - and I don't see that happening in the least either now or in the short or even medium term future. Don't confuse de-dollarization with refusing the "legally acceptable to repay all debts, public and private" quality which is what truly underlies the USD's position.
SFRY: whatever the economic case, using it as an example of a breakup is a terrible one because Yugoslavia was an artificial nation literally built out of centuries and millenia old ethnicities - many of which hated each other. So no, sorry, not a useful comparable in any way.
If anything, Russia's 1990s experience shows what a historically unified nation can undergo and not break up.
American Dream: consumerism is not the American Dream. Neither is materialism. The American Dream is the belief that if you work hard and keep your nose clean, that your life will get better and your children's lives will get better. And the failure of the American Dream is already here: the post Y2K generations all believe, very validly, that their lives are going to be measurably worse than their parents'.
So yes, there is anger and suffering and pain and all that but you're not going to convince me that what Americans are going through now - a 2+ decade austerity squeeze - is in any way worse than Russia's lost 1990s decade.
You're also not going to convince me that the US is going to go through what Russia did in the 1990s where average lifespans for men dropped by double digits. 100K Americans are dying of opioid overdoses a year and the American lifespan is only flat.
I would also repeat that many Americans are already angry. The votes for Obama's first term and Trump's first term are precisely protest votes.
As for taking back what is theirs - how exactly is that going to happen? You seem to think it will be some kind of French Revolution complete with guillotines. I simply am not seeing that now; the suffering that Americans have gone through is nothing like being starving peasants in the pre-French Revolution era.
"I expect USA to split into 2-3 independent states, approximately during 2030-2035."
I don't. Right now, as far as people of influence and authority are concerned, the US is more valuable as a whole rather than broken up.
The thing is precisely that Mother Nature often doesn't care what people of influence and authority care, want, or think. She has her own way, and her own way of doing things. That's what I'm about when I write about USD hyperinflation. It doesn't matter what TPTB think. They're either going to play by the rules, that Mother Nature sets unilateraly, or Mother Nature will have her own way with them.
We've been hearing about the imminent collapse of the dollar since before I was a kitten.
So which irreplaceable American Princess will be married to Putin to seal a Peace Agreement?
Russia is going to want a whole lot more to guarantee another American Pulp Fiction signed by a Puppet with their fingers crossed.
Exactly. There are no such Princesses, and even a conciliatory Trump (not any kind of a guarantee it would happen) could offer any assurances beyond the end of his term, should he be elected, in 2028.
Even during a Trump presidential term - the intel agencies and what not are more than capable of defying Presidential orders and shipping weapons and other assistance to Ukraine on their own.
Plus, don’t you think they just might “accident” Trump out of the way? These thugs have used every other dubious method to cut off his balls (power).
If we learned nothing else from 2016 - 2020, it is that Trump is weak, stupid and easily manipulated.
That said, I hope Putin has as much sense as you give him credit for. Events, however, suggest otherwise.
If any of what you wrote is true - why then is the establishment moving heaven and earth to keep him out of the Presidency again?
Because he says the quiet parts out loud? Because he requires constant minding? Because Our European Puppets are long used to groveling before senile figureheads, but they might well question orders if they come from a gauche jackass?
None of the above.
An objective analysis of US policy prior to Trump 2016 would show, among other things:
1) That Europe was free riding in NATO. Trump fixed that, and now the Europeans are finally waking up to the reality that they cannot underspend on defense forever - particularly if they are going to keep poking bears.
2) That China is a rival to the US and an economic threat. The wall of Chinese money had kept this realization from surfacing for decades - in Hollywood in particular - but Trump broke the ice.
3) Afghanistan. Trump pushed hard for withdrawing the troops and is clearly a major reason why it finally happened.
4) North Korea. Which part of talking with Kim Jong Il was ever part of the neocon strategy?
AS for gauche jackass - do you seriously think Trump is any worse than Dubya? lol
I am amused at how you style yourself "objective",and even if your statements were accurate, they aren't a reason the neocons would want to keep Trump out of the White House.
Meanwhile, note how the election of Obama did more to neuter the antiwar movement in europe and the US than anything Dick Cheney could have done, even if he were made president for life. A CIA analysis supposedly reached a similar conclusion in 2008.
I am objective in how I analyze - it does not mean I do not have my own preferences or opinions.
Your biases, for example, are transparently obvious but poorly supported by any evidence you have provided.
Nor is your own thinking about neocons and Trump, demonstrating any better analytical performance. Whether it is operational or cultural or personal - only a moron could possibly think that the gyrations the Deep State has gone through to keep Trump from acting during his first term, and from getting elected to a second term, are not trivially obvious evidence of Deep State antipathy for Trump.
Nor is your analysis of Obama, any better. There is a very trivial explanation for the anti-war movement's pass on Obama: they are allowed to protest only when a conservative is in office. The media, the self-styled meritocratic elites, the university professors, most but not all of the federal bureaucracy - they are liberal. If a Democrat starts wars and kills people - that's fine. Only those bad Republicans are the baby killers and war mongers.
The draconian suppression of Gaza protests by the mainstream media, university presidents and the ongoing inability to see genocide/atrocity in Gaza are yet more pieces of evidence of the institutional biased nature of the anti-war movement. Note I am not saying all the anti-war people are such - I am saying that the genuine ones among them only enjoyed prominence and social success when it was convenient.
I think Putin is trying to establish the level of treachery and insincerity by the west to build his case why Russia's terms have to be draconian to afford Russia any true security. Also explains his incremental war of attrition as opposed to a massive crushing one-fell-swoop invasion which would alarm the rest of the world.
This combined with the NATO' s reneged Minsk accords, the dropped Turkey Peace plan, and the steady encroachment on its borders with addition of Finland to NATO. Translation: Russia will have to take even more land to create a wider buffer zone- which will cost Russia more, but that is what will be necessary. The West has poisoned the well for chances of any long term peace and stability and it will take generations, if ever, for this to reverse.
Once AFU collapse is imminent, I surely hope VVP picks up the pace a bit. He'll need a lot more troops and they'll have a much more territory to cover.
Interesting analysis. Thank you.
BTW the "actor from the 95th quarter" is Zelensky, referring to his company "95 Kvartal" that produced his hit TV show and then became the source for his chief of staff and other toadies.
It's obvious that Ukraine would only willingly give up territory and withdraw from the 4 regions if it's ready for serious negotiations of a permanent peace deal. It makes sense why Russia would set this precondition for a ceasefire.
The Azov leadership are probably CIA assets like Al Qaeda and ISIS.
There are over 3,800 US documents, on US government websites, released through US FOIA requests, revealing US support for fascism in Ukraine started before the end of WWII and continued through 1991 unabated. Since 1991 there are numerous photos of US officials meeting with fascists in Ukraine like the head of Svoboda, Oleh Yaroslavovych Tyahnybok, coupled with V. Nuland openly discussing Tyahnybok's merit and use in 2014. There is a great deal of concrete evidence of US support for fascism in Ukraine from US sources. There is no need for talking points from anyone or any other country but the US. Yet, most reporters or journalists don't even make the effort.
Andriy Parubiy, the leader on the Ukrainian Nazi Party, had functioned as a commandant of the Nuland-Kagan putsch in 2014. It looks as if the whole Banderite (neo-Nazi) upper echelon of Ukrainian army has been bought by the US fascists in high places. Kretevich et al have self-transformed into Israeliviches while still pretending to be Slavs. They are not. Jews, both local and Straussians, have corrupted Ukraine and Ukrainians to a deadly degree.
And Soros, for whom Krystia Freeland's mother Halyna worked in the 70's. Krystia is the only successor to Liberal Justin in Canada so far. The cancer has advanced over time, thank God finally some treatment is being applied. But who will denazify Canada, and when?
After his Covid Scam/Trucker/Jackboot/War Measures impulses along with his female codependent in tow, Trudeaus is 20% below the Conservatives in the polls. Dead meat.
And yet, the next election may turn out like the one just done in the UK. Yes, the Conservatives imploded, Labour triumphed. Were priorities and behavior of the government modified? Hell, no. Starmer comes out with Project Ukraine as the #1 priority, we'll get around to the common rabble's problems if we have time later. What significant changes do you think will happen if Canadian Conservatives win big in how your government is run?
Fascism has become cool again in the West, as long as it is elsewhere, of course.
It's here too, and not in the leftist bs way. Everything for the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State. Of course, the State = US oligarchy/kakistocracy.