The US Endgame In The Ukraine

I expect the wetiko community will have a plan B (and C and D).

The war may end, many wetiko supporters will be richer, and the alignment of non-Western countries may strengthen in opposition, etc., but the extreme madness of the insane means they cannot, will not let go of their desire to rule the world.

No offense to any armchair prognosticators, but the prognostication hasn’t been very good. It’s been a year and Western taxpayers are still being pumped and Putin’s still bombing civilians and still doing all the usual nuclear sabre rattling. Is there a historical precedent we can compare this to?

Best thing that could happen is investment in leading the world (and the rest of the west) toward an industrial policy focusing on renewable energy production. It could kill two birds with one stone. (1) Actually reducing carbon, and (2) actually re-establishing some of the moral high-ground the U.S. likes to constantly pound its chest about.

That the democrats aren’t flogging this demonstrates just how deep they’ve gone in the pocket of their donors. The entire chip push is just a give away to a tech sector that hasn’t innovated a thing in two decades. Wall Street and the tech sector are the democrats election bank.

@Ian

Here are some counter points to your arguments from my reading of history books, military analysis and current journalism:

You wrote that, “Russia is not the USSR. In many ways the USSR was stronger, but Russia is far more resilient. The USSR had a food deficit, while Russia is a net food exporter: one of the world’s largest. They still have a vast market for hydrocarbons and for their weapons. There is nothing the West can sanction that they must have. ”

1. The Russian economy is still a tenth of the West’s. Also, Russia cannot produce the most advanced weaponry. India might buy oil, but will never supply arms or high technology, because China is her biggest threat, and the West therefore is her biggest potential ally.(I am afraid however that China might start supplying Russia.)

You also wrote, “Russia has a population problem, but it still has a far larger population than Ukraine. It can feed men into the grinder far longer than Ukraine will. Weapons are great, but they must be used by soldiers.”

It seems that the Ukrainian population is much more motivated to volunteer and to serve with enthusiasm. There are so many examples from history wherein a smaller population outlasted a greater: Holland vs Spain, Afghanistan vs Russia, Vietnam vs America, Prussia vs Austria and her allies, young America vs Britain.

You also wrote, “Further, Russia is not trying to occupy the entire country, but only the parts which are Russian majority or close to it. These places are not anti-Russian. They are not ideal for guerilla operations, both because of the lack of support for them and because Ukraine is basically a large open plain, not mountain or jungle.”

According to reports (which make sense), almost all sympathy for Russia has been murdered, raped, looted and shelled out of even the Russian-speaking population. Indeed, 2014 already changed that political landscape. Even Zelensky and his entourage include many Russian speakers.

I partly agree about the terrain, but there are many forests, hills and swamps interspersed in the plains, enough for small groups of partisans familiar with their homeland.

“Internally, as I’ve pointed out repeatedly, the Russian leadership cannot afford to lose. If Putin is seen by Russians to have lost the war, he will lose power and he may not survive that, nor may his family.”

So the West hopes.

“Further, people who think Putin losing power would be good for Ukraine or the West are deranged. The people who will replace him are to his right, and they will want another go. Their primary complaint is that Putin hasn’t gone all in: hasn’t full mobilized, hasn’t used all the weapons available (Russia has been far more restrained than the US was in Iraq), and hasn’t moved to a war economy.”

Whoever replaces Putin and his siloviki shall be weaker and have less authority. They will eat their own.

“Meanwhile, the West is becoming more unified, but not stronger. China continues its rise, and US reshoring efforts seem to involve taking industry from Europe and some week efforts at moving semiconductor production to the US. China produced more semiconductor patents last year than the rest of the world combined, the idea that the Western tech lead is durable is a joke.”

In this I defer to others in an economic debate. The Economist (cf.) however feels that America despite all its flaws is inherently more resilient than the top-down economy of China. As an historian, I tend to favour polities with more freedom, but my expertise is in bygone eras.

… (elipsis) … “Meanwhile climate change advances and it increases Russia’s advantage in agriculture: it improves their yields.”

Russia is like Canada, both of which have poor soil in the Arctic, scraped bare by the ice age. Warmth alone shall not suffice. Also, Russia has an even worse record for environmental devastation than Canada: the Aral Sea, for example.

“This is a fantastically stupid war, with no good end and it’s not going to replicate Afghanistan and the USSR because Russia is not the USSR, Ukraine is not Afghanistan and America is not the America of the 80s, still vastly dominant economically.”

I certainly agree that this stupid war should never have been started. The same can be said of almost every war. As for economic power, do not discount the wealth of Europe: this is a fight for the survival of the European post-war dream of law-based peace and cooperation. Even if Tucker Carlson et alia prevail, I think that that shall only serve to kick Europe in the ass and wake her up.

“Negotiation should be the way out, but we are stuck in a maximal position: Russia must get nothing.”

Imagine how much better off Russia would be if all the sanctions dating back to 2014 were removed.

Those are some thoughts I had while reading.

The strategy is not Afghanistan in the ’80s. That would require many of orders of magnitude less investment to pull off than what has been spent to date. The overall objective is to fight Russia to some sort of standstill while significantly enhancing the credibility of the western alliance in the eyes of alliance partners. The meta aim is to enhance the importance of this type of alliance structure in which America is the indispensable partner, while also getting the other partners to boost their investments so it isn’t doing as much of the heavy lifting as it has been. (The behind the scenes arm twisting on NATO spending has been brutal; like half of Ottawa has their arm in a sling.)

They actually appear to be succeeding at this – hugely expensive and not without risks (the big one actually being various flavours of catastrophic success) but generally succeeding. If they can end up with a more bounded Putin having to spend increased political capital at home to pair with a greatly diminished perception of Russian power they will view that as the cherry on top, but they will avoid at all costs having the guy defenestrated without having a very clear successor formation they think they can deal with (which I don’t think exists).

“History is not grounded in facts; rather it’s the winners’ interpretation of them that prevails.” The USA provoked Imperial Japan to attack Pearl Harbor. “History rhymes”. The Russia Federation is just as infested with rich power elite as is the West. The Kremlin believed its own propaganda and invaded Ukraine — Just like NATO did in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria.

Because of this basic strategic mistake, the proxy WWIII in Ukraine is playing out like WWI with drones instead of Fokker fighter planes. The war is stalemated because Russia has not fully mobilized nor risked its air force to gain air supremacy. So far it is not too obvious in the West because shortages are being paid for by credit. But it does bear repeating, the West is going full speed ahead, doing all it can to dismember Russia, short of using tactical nuclear weapons, with the blood of Ukrainians.

China has grown up to 77% of the US economy. Western industry has mostly offshored to Asia. Americans are overweight and ill. The US Army failed to enlist its quota in 2022. Diplomacy has vanished. If global credit markets fail, bank runs will start and governments will fall.

When Pandora’s Box was opened it released sickness and death on the world but it also released hope. That is all that is left — the hope for the peaceful restoration of democracy, reality and science — the imposition of taxes on corporations and oligarchs to pay for good government. Instead the most likely outcome of WWIII will be the utter violence of a People’s Revolution like Russia’s in 1917 on one side or the other. That is if a nuclear war is avoided.

Che: A few thoughts on the leaner meaner hippie thing.

1. Consumer-izing culture has been incredibly successful. See my recent post.
2. Leveraging those consumers into precarious financial positions has been extremely successful. See: the 30 yr mortgage; student loans, cheap credit, etc. It’s the constant fear of precariousness that subverts any type of revolutionary culture.
3. The southern strategy, in its various manifestations since inception, has been incredibly successful. See: idpol, race, rural v. urban, science v. religion, etc. all the while distracting from the real problem — class. Divide and conquer.
4. The takeover of mainstream media, post fairness doctrine has been incredibly successful. Turning once trusted sources into propaganda streams.

As intimated in my last post, but did not set out in detail, all these factors have intertwined and grown together to turn not only left v. right, marginalized v. mainstream, brown v. white, PMC v. working class. Itt’s turned everyone against everyone. All. The. Time.

The revolution will not be televised, because it won’t happen until everyone is so immiserated they can no longer afford one to watch it on. That’s how deep the hole needs to be before everyone who isn’t an elite finally realize the problem is class, mob up, and do what needs to be done.

I have read that when there was still an active frontier-of-conflict between the Indian Nations and the English Colonies, that many British Islander indentured servants, convicts, etc. defected to the Indians while very few if any Indians defected to the Colonists.

different clue, I rememeber reading something similar, in fact I believe it was Ben Franklin himself who wrote (paraphrasing), “You know, it’s interesting to observe that whenever ‘the Indians’ come to eat and be merry with us, they inevitably go ‘back to the woods.’ But, whenever ‘our people’ go ‘into the woods,’ to make merry with ‘the indians,’ they never come back.”

Some of the old Legacy Hippies have proven themselves tough enough to survive and keep working at things. Like Albert Bates . . .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_Bates
https://www.thefarm.org/

A little over a decade ago, I had the pleasure of spending three wonderful weeks at Twin Oaks, one of the oldest and best known of the intentional communities:

https://www.twinoaks.org/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cuk6rUbN1xM

I am sad to see that they have sort of a “woke” racism disclaimer prominently displayed on their front page. I don’t think it’s necessary. In fact, I think its subtly divisive in its own way. I don’t say this in the same sense that a Tucker Carlson type might say it. I am not coming at it from that angle, which is intended to be even more divisive.

“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread . . .”

There will be no way to pay the bills except to sell the nation itself. Which is why Black Rock is circling like a vulture.

I don’t think the “circling vultures” illustration is apt. Vultures for the most part simply eat dead carcasses. They don’t actively kill the carrion they consume. In other words, they’re not predators.

In the case of wars, everything is by design. The Blackrocks of the world don’t just wait around for pols to do monstrous things and then circle in like vultures for the dead carcass. Blackrock et al are operating through the entire process, which is years, even decades in the making. They make sure that only pathologically ambitious, stupid, entirely controllable pols are vetted and made available to the voting public in the first place – on both sides.

I’ll delve a little bit into the Zionist angle, as I am wont to do. You may recall that Victoria Nuland was the point person for the 2014 coup the US carried out in Ukraine. The now famous video of her speaking to the US ambassador to the Ukraine at the time, Geoffrey Pyatt, is known mostly because of Nuland’s “Fuck the EU” remark.

But the person Nuland wanted “on the outside” working with “Yats” (Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the man who replaced elected Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych in the Zionist US coup) was a man named Oleh Tyahnybok, who has called for the removal of all Jews and Russians from Ukraine in order to create a more Ukrainian Ukraine. A place where Ukrainians can just be, you know, Ukrainians. Or whatever.

But that’s not going to happen in Ukraine. None of the players currently involved give a rat’s ass about everyday Ukrainians.

Nuland also mentioned Vitali Klitschko(“Klitsch and Tyahnybok”), who Wikipedia takes pains to mention has a long lineage of matrilineal Jewishness. Many of his relatives died during WWII.**

Vitali Klitschko, a boxer in a previous life, wants much stronger Ukrainian integration with Europe, to join NATO, and doesn’t care much about native Ukrainian issues, other than the typically vague pronouncements about bettering the economy.

Strange bedfellows.

I’m reminded of the Zionist-Nazi collaboration Alfred Lilenthal, among others, documented in his “The Zionist Connection: What Price Peace?”

Alison Weir, who has been targeted with death threats by Zionists for years, wrote an excellent article entitled “The Extremist Origins of Education and Sharing Day: Why is the U.S. Honoring a Racist Rabbi?” which talks about what is now the largest Jewish organization in the world, Chabad-Lubavitch. You may remember they were in the White House next to that rabidly “antisemitic” Donald Trump (apparently nobody gave Sheldon Adelson or Trumps’ myriad other Jewish funders the memo about his hatred of Jews. Hell, I hope Ivanka is okay).

But I digress. From the article:

“Schneerson has been praised widely for a public persona and organization that emphasized “deep compassion and insight,” worked to bring many secular Jews “back” into the fold, created numerous schools around the world, and had offered, in the words of the Jewish Virtual Library, “social-service programs and humanitarian aid to all people, regardless of religious affiliation or background.”

However, there is also a less attractive underside often at odds with such public perceptions. And some of the more extreme parts of Schneerson’s teachings – such as that Jews are a completely different species than non-Jews, and that non-Jews exist only to serve Jews – have been largely hidden, it appears, even from many who consider themselves his followers.

Needless to say, these views profoundly impact the lives of Palestinians living – and dying – under Israeli occupation and military invasions.

Let us look at Schneerson’s words, as quoted by two respected Jewish professors, Israel Shahak and Norton Mezvinsky, in their book Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel (text available online here). This book, praised by Noam Chomsky, Edward Said, and many others is essential reading for anyone who truly wishes to understand modern day Israel-Palestine. (Brackets in the quotes below are in the translations by Shahak and Mezvinsky.)

Some of Schneerson’s rarely reported teachings:

“The difference between a Jewish and a non-Jewish person stems from the common expression: ‘Let us differentiate.’ Thus, we do not have a case of profound change in which a person is merely on a superior level. Rather, we have a case of ‘let us differentiate’ between totally different species.”

“This is what needs to be said about the body: the body of a Jewish person is of a totally different quality from the body of [members] of all nations of the world … The difference in the inner quality between Jews and non-Jews is so great that the bodies should be considered as completely different species.”

“An even greater difference exists in regard to the soul. Two contrary types of soul exist, a non-Jewish soul comes from three satanic spheres, while the Jewish soul stems from holiness.”

“As has been explained, an embryo is called a human being, because it has both body and soul. Thus, the difference between a Jewish and a non-Jewish embryo can be understood.”

“…the general difference between Jews and non-Jews: A Jew was not created as a means for some [other] purpose; he himself is the purpose, since the substance of all [divine] emanations was created only to serve the Jews.”

“The important things are the Jews, because they do not exist for any [other] aim; they themselves are [the divine] aim.”

“The entire creation [of a non-Jew] exists only for the sake of the Jews.”

Most people don’t know about this aspect of Schneerson’s teaching because, according to Shahak and Mezvinsky, such teachings are intentionally minimized, mistranslated, or
alison weir book hidden entirely.

For example, the quotes above were translated by the authors from a book of Schneerson’s recorded messages to followers that was published in Israel in 1965. Despite Schneerson’s global importance and the fact that his world headquarters is in the U.S., there has never been an English translation of this volume.

Shahak, an Israeli professor who was a survivor of the Nazi holocaust, writes that this lack of translation of an important work is not unusual, explaining that much critical information about Israel and some forms of Judaism is available only in Hebrew.

He and co-author Mezvinsky, who was a Connecticut Distinguished University Professor who taught at Central Connecticut State University, write, “The great majority of the books on Judaism and Israel, published in English especially, falsify their subject matter.”

According to Shahak and Mezvinsky, “Almost every moderately sophisticated Israeli Jew knows the facts about Israeli Jewish society that are described in this book. These facts, however, are unknown to most interested Jews and non-Jews outside Israel who do not know Hebrew and thus cannot read most of what Israeli Jews write about themselves in Hebrew.”

https://ifamericansknew.org/about_us/educationday.html

Menachem Mendel Schneerson was a messiah to his people, as Ari Feldman noted in his December 10, 2017 article in the widely-read Jewish Daily Forward: “Is Rebbe Schneerson The Jewish Messiah? Faith Survives In Chabad.”

The aforementioned article is well worth the read, as it subtly notes a formidable power behind both Trump and Putin.

https://forward.com/news/388439/is-rebbe-schneerson-the-jewish-messiah-faith-survives-in-chabad/

Lubavitch was a Ukranian village where the Chabad movement – now the largest Jewish organization in the world – got started.

I’ll repeat that:

Lubavitch was a Ukranian village where the Chabad movement – the largest Jewish organization in the world – got started.

It’s interesting to note here that Victoria Nuland, who was the point person for the coup the United States carried out in Ukraine back in 2014, is of Ukranian Jewish ancestry. So is Antony Blinken. And both these personages rigidly maintain the unmitigated ideological fervor vis-a-vis Israel that is so characteristic of Jews in prominent positions throughout the world.

Oh yeah, almost forgot. Volodymyr Zelenskyy is a Jewish Zionist. He was an actor before his most recent gig. His family lives in an $8 million home in Israel, and he maintains a $34 million estate in Miami Beach, among other abodes.

Now, the only reason this isn’t seen and understood on a very deep level as the massive conflict of interest that it quite obviously is, is because it’s intentionally not reported as such.

Incidentally, Goldman and Chase (or Citi, I forget) are the main players in addition to Blackrock, literally dictating the structure of the new Ukraine in their interests.

**I intentionally wrote “died during WWII” as opposed to “were slaughtered in the holocaust” because I want to illustrate how language is used to deceive. You will never read “Palestinians were slaughered during the nakba” or “Palestinians were slaughtered during Operation Cast Lead.” You will read that Palestinian rockets “slaughtered Jews” but you will notice that Palestinians are simply killed by Jews/Israelis. In fact, more often than not there is no agency ascribed at all, i.e. “Palestinians died during the incursion.” They just died. No agency. But Jews are slaughtered.

Putin spoke about Chabad as if he were an emissary: https://www.israelhayom.com/2019/07/12/putin-spoke-about-chabad-as-if-he-were-an-emissary/

The Happy-Go-Lucky Jewish Group That Connects Trump and Putin: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/04/the-happy-go-lucky-jewish-group-that-connects-trump-and-putin-215007/

Russian chief rabbi protests as top official describes Chabad as a supremacist cult: https://www.timesofisrael.com/russian-chief-rabbi-protests-as-top-official-describes-chabad-as-a-supremacist-cult/

Putin fires top official who described Chabad as a supremacist cult: https://www.timesofisrael.com/putin-fires-top-official-who-describes-chabad-as-a-supremacist-cult/

“The years after the collapse of the Soviet Union and particularly the decades under President Vladimir Putin saw an unprecedented reversal of fortunes for Russian Jews. The days of government-promulgated antisemitism as state policy are long gone.

A number of Jews, some of their detractors argue too many, are among Russian oligarchs, the richest men of Russia and the entire world, circling around Putin, the holy of holies, part of his closest circle of friends, his “consiglieres,” his explainers to the West.”

Chabad’s Long Faustian Bargain With Russia and Putin: https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/2022-04-25/ty-article-opinion/.highlight/chabads-long-faustian-bargain-with-russia-and-putin/00000180-655d-d824-ad9e-e77d0d8b0000

@Tallifer

The Russian economy is doing just fine. Yes, it has less overall money, but it also has higher purchasing power in practice. Russians aren’t going to run out of what they need. Luxuries have suffered, but that’s viewed as a price worth paying in an existential fight.

Russian weapons are consistently at least comparable to, and in some cases better (and further in some cases significantly better) than what the West has, and most importantly they’ve demonstrated no lack of stockpiles and ability to produce more, while NATO is completely tapped put by its own admission.

Ukraine doesn’t have many willing volunteers. The able bodied men have fled in vast numbers and Kiev is on something like wave eight or nine of conscription. Meanwhile Russia has called up a single mobilization of reservists, supplemented by 70,000 volunteers.

No idea where you’re getting this ‘Russia has murdered, raped , and looted away sympathy’ stuff. No, they haven’t, and in fact even the UN is forced to concede how shockingly low the civilian casualties have been for the scale of this war. The ‘barbarian Russian orcs’ meme is beyond tiresome at this point, especially given all the direct evidence of how the Ukrainian (literal) Nazis regularly conduct themselves.

The Economist is a worthless propaganda rag, and even vaguely ‘free’ economies have a horrible track record at industrial warfare, as NATO is discovering literally right now. The ‘arsenal of demoracy’ system is dead and buried.

@Carborundum
Russia has been very consisted that it never wanted regime change. It never went for Kiev, never bombed major central government juildings, and has since day one tried to get negotiations (which Boris Johnson seems to have completely destroyed any chance of).

So much of the ‘Russia is losing’ narrative is just memes. Truisms that were never actually true but everyone just repeats them and then nods sagely and analysis on these false premises.

The numbers you’re citing are completely delusional. 40 tanks, even if they didn’t suck (the Leopard 2 has a horrible recent track record, and the Abrams is far from some unstoppable super unit) amount to nothing at this scale of warfare. This is literally Nazi Germany wunderwaffen levels of strategic illiteracy.

It’s likely there never will be a Ukrainian spring offensive of any size (they have nothing left to throw and little ability to move it at scale anyway), and if there is it’ll play put like every other Kiev operation: Russian troops retreat to minimize Russian casualties, Ukraine crows about a bunch of retaken villages, and then their forces get taken to pieces in a giant Russian firepocket. At some point the awkward photos of burning or captured Leopards and Abrams will start to appear.

The least dumb option for these tanks will be to park them in the West to try and form the core of some post-war force for a rump Ukraine.

At some point there likely will be a grand offensive. It’ll be Russian, after Moscow has decided its ground the Ukrainian troops down enough with its crushing artillery advantage and decided to actually bring the hammer of the Russian regulars down (as opposed to outsourcing the worst street fighting to the Wagner mercenaries).

@VietnamVet

NATO has foolishly gone full steam into an industrial war it has no capacity to win. Ukraine uses more shells in a week than the West can produce in a year. Though the ammo shortage problem may be being solved simply because every day Ukraine has fewer and fewer (now mostly ludicrously outdated) guns to fire shots with).

How else to fight memes than with memes?

One must accept that we (the non elite) are as much a part of the problem as the elites, because we’ve bought into it, and in some cases actively support it. Every day we telegraph our acceptance of what’s going on. Oh, we grumble into our corn flakes about the latest atrocity, and then do, what exactly?

Call it psyops, or any name. Changing non-elite peoples thinking and their being and their doing is what’s required. If a meme for the good works, then let it work. Because everything else are bad memes, working for the bad people. Memes will exist whether you choose to participate or not.

I myself keep probing the gauntlet. I left a review on a tax prep website arguing (rightfully) that paper and pen are much easier in comparison. Within hours, I got a phone call, and a text message, and an email, which to me just emphasizes how annoying the process is. My taxes are basically the same every year, and I have to answer 15 to 20 minutes of the same annoying questions every year? Part of the process is making us doubt we really know some of the answers, and all of it is to ensure they won’t be liable. Copying new numbers into a new form based on the old form takes barely ten minutes, with a few seconds for a stamp on the envelope.

Don’t want to build a meme? No problem, but start questioning everything, instead of just accepting things the way they are. I bought a car a few years ago, my old car was close to 30 years old and I was worried about breakdowns. I refused to sign the mandated “you can’t sue us, only mediation is possible” bs. I also had a very long conversation with the dealer about this. It didn’t amount to anything, I had to sign or continue driving my old car, but it’s a story I can share, just like I’m doing here.

There is absolutely no way to know exactly what effect we have on people except this: we do have an effect on other people we meet, talk to, share posts with on blogs, etc. So make it a positive and embrace it, and we might finally get somewhere in this fight for our lives, and the lives of every other living thing on this Earth. Because this is about WAY more than just you and me.

Or not.

For those who deny Russian atrocities, I offer this article: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2023/02/gravedigger-bucha-ukraine-russia-war/673179/

More food for thought to counteract what some term Russian copium: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/mar/02/russia-run-out-of-money-oleg-deripaska

I have been listening to the excellent historical podcast When Diplomacy Fails, and the flailing attempts of Spain to retain supremacy remind me of post-Soviet Russia. An empire in decline.

Politicians hide themselves away. They only started the war. Why should they go out to fight? They leave that all to the poor…making war just for fun.

There’s a meme for ya. An oldie but goodie. Probably crafted for teenaged boys but still applicable. Should it matter that politicians these days are better at hiding behind “nuance” and agitprop and cultural idiocy? It’s been said here before: most human behavior is about having skin in the game.

Every Friday I see a Ukrainian housecleaner at a house I’m working on. She’s been in the states 9 months now with her two daughters. Her sons and husband fight back home, where she was once a nurse and him an IT project manager. Their dream home is essentially worthless due to that whole ‘real estate in a warzone’ thing. She’s been taking English classes and is learning it fast. Does anybody here have something they’d like me to ask her?

Every nation is beset by corruption and there is no such thing as the leader of a powerful nation who is also a good person. I’m not one who believes Putin is saving the world for “traditional values”. I also lived in Russia when he came to power. My criticisms of him have been serious, primarily that he neglected domestic economic development early in his leadership.

But the western version of Putin and Russia is just such a ridiculous propaganda caricature. I would ask how the most corrupt government ever also paid off all the USSR’s debts, all of Russia’s 90’s debts, and Ukraine’s soviet debts. This super corrupt and evil government just completed 70 km for a new outer ring of Moscow’s subway and did the whole project through already developed land in under a decade. Corrupt governments don’t do things like that. Look at the US.

Of course there is corruption in Russia, it exists everywhere. But here too we have a distorted picture of Russia, as if it was trying to find democracy and good governance in the 90’s. It was the opposite, by design (see Jeffry Sachs who’s repented and explained his role in that). Putin is genuinely popular in Russia because he lifted the nation out of absolutely crushing poverty and dysfunction. Could he have done better? Sure. Can he be criticized? Absolutely.

But at the end of the day most people don’t give a damn about ideals and concepts, especially when they live in a failed state. They care about enough to eat, getting medical care and the basics. Russians have gone from vodka as currency to one of the lighter drinking European nations in 20 years. Because they don’t live in despair anymore. The most amazing thing is that Putin’s greatest failures have been remedied by being forced by the west to turn away from it. The amount of socials spending over the last few years is impressive. Just this year, the first and primary response to sanctions was to increase pensions, raise the minimum and living wage, etc. Seriously, horribly corrupt totalitarian states simply don’t do that.

I mean Joe Biden still owes me $600. I live in a country where I can’t really afford to use my enormously expensive health insurance. And that’s because politics and heath care are wickedly corrupt. I’m robbed at every turn by the system while the politicians supposedly representing me get filthy rich and the billionaire robbing me get everything they want. I’m in no position to criticize Russia for its failures.

Willy:
Love me some Black Sabbath.

In every war that has ever been fought war crimes have been committed. IMO the key factor that one should look at when deciding which side to support is which side is actually responsible for the war in the first place. The decision should not be made upon which military has the better trained more disciplined military.
From where I sit on Mars it clearly looks to me like the US and NATO were responsible for the war getting started at all.
This idea that the Ukrainians are fighting for a just cause is non sense. Those Ukrainians fighting the Russians want to become part of the EU and NATO. But EU and NATO are part of a vast continuing criminal enterprise. NO people have the right to join a continuing criminal enterprise any more than they have to wage a war of aggression, even if a referendum is held and passes unanimously.
I am not surprised that some people on the left are confused about the situation. The context of this conflict has been robbed from them. The west has been waging war on Russia since 1917. The Russians have finally decided to fight back after decades of provocation.
Yes a western leftist couid and many do argue that Russia and China (and Iran) are also vast continuing criminal enterprises that are even more barbaric that the US led continuing criminal enterprise
But, I say that western leftist are not actually in a position to pass judgement on that because it is hard enough to understand what is going on in one’s own country due to the lack of reliable sources, and to the lack of agreement on what news reporting sources are actually reliable. But one thing is certain beyond a shred of doubt and that is the system of of dissemination of information to the masses in the west is irredeemably corrupt. Yes, it very likely is everywhere else as well. That is why I support the telescope method over the microscope method for understanding the world.
Now for one final thought. Why can’t the US ever admit that it was responsible for blowing up the Nord Stream pipeline. Because that would explicitly reveal that the US will not allow Germany to be an actually independent nation. To admit the US did what it did clearly says that German policy decisions are subject to US approval.
Therefore the US to condemnation of the Russian Liberation of the Ukraine is just another example of US exceptionalism.
Shit writing that paragraph just gave me an epiphany. I now know why Orban is able to get away with a purge of some of the officers in the Hungarian Army. Orban is allowed or was even perhaps told to do this to create the idea in people’s minds that the German Chancellor did not have to go along with the destruction of the pipeline. If the leader of Hungary, a nation with 10 million people or so. It would have certainly been possible for Scholz to have vetoed the plan and the US would have deferred.

That made me lose my train of thought.

Oh right, I remember now. Many environmentalists did not want this pipeline built in the first place. for such people its destruction can be cheered regardless of who did it or how. My response is that would be true only if the destruction of the pipeline were part of a comprehensive plan to phase out hydrocarbons.

One thing the Indigenous peoples didn’t have was (universal) money. Oh, they traded food, goods and services, but in a trade there is need on one side, and abundance on the other.

Money being the root of all evil, and everywhere is money, then it follows that evil and its atrocities are everywhere.

Russia as a sovereign nation resisting being enveloped into the New World Order™ is the only thing that matters. For every example of atrocities that have been performed in the name of [insert ideology here], there is another one being perpetuated “over there” in the name of [insert different ideology]. The atrocities described here, as bad and evil as they are, are nothing compared to the scales of damage occurring from the climate atrocities that are ongoing and increasing.

The last thing we need is a single group of insane people controlling the entire globe, all the money, and especially all the hydrocarbons, because they will merely continue to increase the burn rate for profit while also building their space ships to escape the damage.

Back to Orban and the report that he purged officers in the Hungarian Military and how that fits nicely in with the destruction of the Nordstream Pipeline. How can any of us aactually know how many officers were actually purged. It might be reported that it was 200. But the actual number might have been not more than 2.
There are no reliable sources of information. But we can reasonably believe that the the two events were actually reported to the public. Understanding the meaning of these reports is not a science it is an art.
Scientists prefer to deal with proof to know what is true. But proof is often not available, Then evidence is considered. If enough evidence is accumulated pointing towards something a scientific consensus might emerge, put seldom unanimity.
But there is an even weaker level than evidence. That is indications. If one does not consider the indications that are available you will never find your way out of the maize that has been constructed.
I thank Ian for making that report about Orban purging officers. It was not a widely reported event and had he not put it here I would have never had heard about it.
If my supposition is correct it shows the detailed planning by the MIC of the US and its allies that goes in to manipulating our perceptions of what is going on. That leads me not to trust any reports about how much aid the west is or is not giving to the Ukrainians.
Jason is right this war between the Ukraine and Russia was planned by the west long ago. We just have a small difference of opinion on who planned it.

Lord know that there is plenty to criticize about the war, but if Russia were losing as many men and equipment as claimed, it would not be necessary to make up so many fake claims of victory.

If Russian troops were committing as many atrocities as claimed, it would not be necessary to make up so many fake atrocity tales.

Of course the western MSM never ever would produce fake reports of victory or fake atrocity stories, like they did in Serbia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, etc..

This Twitter thread compared Oryx’s numbers to what the Russian 1st GTA reported themselves and found Oryx’s numbers were accurate, and even undercounted Russian losses by about 20% or so.

https://twitter.com/partizan_oleg/status/1526199389764874240

@NR

Oryx is almost certainly a letter agency propaganda op. It plays games like taking pictures of Ukraine-only variants and claims they’re Russian, and takes multiple angles of the same vehicle and tallies them as multiple vehicles. It’s a joke.

One side is screaming for an endless stream of new equipment. And that side isn’t Russia.

Oryx is almost certainly a letter agency propaganda op.

And now we’re back to the Russian propaganda.

Anyway, it’s pointless to argue about this. Things will unfold as they will regardless of what anyone here says. I’ll just point out that Oryx posts all the photos it uses to determine vehicle losses on their website, so people can look and decide for themselves if they’re accurate or not.

@Willy

There was no Holodomor. It’s a myth cynically produced by Nazi collaborator Ukrainian expats within the context of the Cold War.

What there actually was was a series of famines across the Soviet Union in the early 30s caused by a combination of environmental factors and disruptions brought on by forced collectivization of farms. Ukraine wasn’t even the worst hit area; Kazakhstan was.

The idea of a targeted genocide (and it needs to be pointed out that if it was intended it failed miserably) has little serious academic support. It’s entirely a politically motivated narrative unsupported by the evidence.

Within a decade far more of the supposedly targeted and victimized Ukrainians would go on to fight for the Red Army than turned traitor and signed up with the fascists, which I would think would put a final nail in the coffin of the whole Holodomor idea. Victims of Russia is certainly not how most of the Soviet citizens in Ukraine thought of themselves.

In fact it’s the traitors and their descendents who fled who went on to craft a narrative of Ukrainian victimhood at the hands of Moscow.

Yeah, and my grandmother losing her entire birth family to the Bolsheviks was probably a myth too. Maybe they just didn’t like her and left her behind when they moved to their greener pastures.

Some sources blame the forced collectivization. But what do I know? In a world where the winners write history but the losers have to live it, I guess anything’s possible. What’s the point of even debating this “Ukraine” when everybody’s got their own version of events, whether they’ve actually lived them or not, however it floats their own particular emotional boat?

I once thought it’d be easiest to blame the worst stuff on unchecked concentrations of power. Power mad psychopaths and all. But it seems a surprising lot of people need their big daddy, so much they can’t even reason without them. Is this why we never get to have nice things for long, because “my big daddy’s stronger than your big daddy” ?

Is there no one in the Canadian Military with Integrity and Discernment?

And what of it? What can one person do against an entire institution?