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Friday, March 4, 2022

2022-03-04

*** denotes well-worth reading in full at source (even if excerpted extensively here)

Regular Fare:

People all over expect policies by central bankers trained in economics to have a sound scientific base. But inflation targeting is an article of faith with neither theoretical nor empirical basis.

...... Pierre Fortin – past President of the Canadian Economics Association – emphasized, “Strong claims that there are large macroeconomic benefits to be reaped … are not presently founded on robust quantitative evidence. They are premature”.

Cheerleaders claim inflation-targeting has delivered low inflation. But others have alternative explanations for the Great Moderation. The “one-size-fits-all” mantra has also effectively shut the door to alternative strategies for robust, sustainable and inclusive growth.

Harm’s way
Inflation targeting can be harmful, especially as monetary authorities have little control over external sources of inflation. Current inflationary pressures are largely due to rising international food and fuel prices.

... Raising interest rates or monetary tightening to achieve targets when inflation is largely due to external or supply shocks will exacerbate the debt burdens of households, businesses and governments, thus reducing economic growth and employment prospects.



Other Charts: (source links: one, two, three, )




... Every economist knows that inflation peaks at the end of the cycle. That's Econ 101. Bottlenecks accumulate during the expansion and reach their peak late in the cycle. The COVID pandemic exacerbated these bottlenecks due to the global supply chain disruption which cleared out store inventories. During the lockdown consumers switched from buying services to buying durable goods. The inventory logjam caused corporations to move away from the "just in time" inventory model back to stock-piling inventories which has kept the ports backlogged with shipments due to double ordering. 

On the labor side, three million Boomers left the workforce amid 20 million layoffs. Per tradition, the U.S. laid off far more workers during the pandemic than any other developed nation. TWENTY years of employment was lost in early 2020.
"It's much harder for workers in their 50s and 60s — or older — to re-enter the workforce after a period of unemployment, due to persistent ageism in corporate America"

So it's likely that many of those who left jobs got discouraged and chose to retire instead"
Now employers are crying that they can't find enough workers. Does anyone remember the paycheck protection program? It PAID payroll costs for employees so they wouldn't have to lay off workers. Free money. And yet, they still laid everyone off. ...


(not just) for the ESG crowd:

New IPCC report highlights urgency of climate change impacts

'Major Step Forward': AIG to Stop Insuring Coal, Tar Sands, and Arctic Drilling



Other / Fun Fare:

Largest shock wave in the universe is 60 times larger than the Milky Way, new study finds





Contrarian Perspectives

Extra [i.e. Controversial] Fare:

*** denotes well-worth reading in full at source (even if excerpted extensively here)



Unsustainability Fare:

Bardi: Back to Reality: We are All Children of Oil



COVID Fare:

I am increasingly coming across too much excellent COVID-related content (with contrarian evidence-based points-of-view!!) to link to it all
Read everything by eugyppius; el gato malo; Mathew Crawford; Steve Kirsch; Jessica Rose!
Paul Alexander, Berenson, Chudov, Lyons-Weiler, Toby Rogers are also go-to mainstays; a list to which I have added Andreas Oehler, Joey Smalley (aka Metatron) and, Julius Ruechel; Denninger worth staying on top of too for his insights, and especially his colorful language; and Norman Fenton; new addition: Marc Girardot; I will of course continue to post links to key Peter McCullough material, and Geert Vanden Bossche, and Robert Malone, and Martin Kulldorff, and Jay Bhattacharya, and Sucharit Bhakdi, and Pierre Kory, and Harvey Risch, and Michael Yeadon, and John Ioannidis, and Paul Marik, and Tess Lawrie, and Zelenko, and Dolores Cahill, and [local prof] Byram Bridle, and Ryan Cole, and…
but going forward, my linking to material by those mainstays mentioned above will be reduced to key excerpts and/or essential posts

Analysis:



Denninger: One In Thirty


New Zealand Data Shows Fully Vaccinated Developing VAIDS

The problem we’re seeing here is that the immune system isn’t returning to its original and natural state. If it was then the outcomes of infection with Covid-19 would be similar to the outcomes among the not-vaccinated/one dose vaccinated population. Instead, it continues to decline at a rate that means the not-vaccinated population have a better performing immune system, so this means the Covid-19 injections are decimating the immune systems of the fully vaccinated.





Although it has been reported on by Igor Chudov a few days ago, I would like to add a bit more beef to this uncorroborated (so far) information, as it is the news no one wants to believe, but it deserves further investigation for the reasons outlined below....


Commentary:

bayer exec says the quiet part out loud?



Pushback Fare:

Wolf: I'm not "Brave";You're Just a P---y.
On courage. And on the DMs that I am sent that seek to justify cowardice, at a time when some bravery is needed from us all.
Science and law are under attack in New Zealand.


Malone: Propaganda, Corporatism, and the Hidden Global Coup
Le Bon and Goebbels teach us about modern State and NGO-sponsored Propaganda during COVID

One current example involves the almost global acceptance of mask use by the general population over the past two years. Because Fauci and his acolytes at the CDC insisted that masks work, public acceptance of a very intrusive element into people’s lives was almost universal. Data demonstrating lack of effectiveness of masks for preventing spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus are largely irrelevant and either rejected or unable for its existence to be acknowledged by those who have become hypnotized by the mass formation process. Even the logic of masking children was accepted without question despite the clear and compelling evidence of harm.
.... Over the last two years, we have seen clear evidence that both our government as well as those of Great Britain and many other western democracies have learned and actively apply the lessons of Gustave Le Bon and Joseph Goebbels quite well.


Spartacus Returns! 
hat tip: Ilargi
The largest racketeering case in human history is unfolding before our very eyes

....... Perhaps we were not explicit enough.

SARS-CoV-2 is manmade. It was produced at the Wuhan Institute of Virology with US Government funding. It is the lynchpin of a plan by ruthless elites to take over the entire world. There is enough circumstantial evidence that, if taken together, implicates numerous government officials and scientists in this plot.

The people involved could be charged with crimes against humanity for their complicity in this, but if they were, it would bring the entire system crashing down around our ears simply due to the sheer number of the guilty and the loftiness of their offices.

There is no way to sugarcoat any of this. If people remain ignorant of the nature of COVID-19 and the events leading up to the present, then the petty tyrants stripping us of our civil liberties will win.

What follows will be something of a recapitulation of the Spartacus Letter, in great detail, with numerous hyperlinks and small blocks of quoted material and images within fair use limitations, for the sake of commentary and criticism of public figures. .......


Back to Non-Pandemic Fare:

GeoPolitical Fare:


My dear TV western armchair generals,

I get it, I promise.  I really do!

Your entire life you have been trained to see a successful military operations like so:

Begin by bombing the shit of the “hadjis” or “sand niggers” with bombs and missiles, then flatten their town à la Fallujah, then move in with heavy armor and shoot everything which still moves or breathes.

Then distribute chewing-gums to a few kids while on video.

.... 

...Fifth,  the Ukie military was 80% defeated on Day 1.  Get that?  It was gone as a coherent fighting force.  THAT is why they are blowing up bridges, distributing weapons and releasing convicted criminals.  NOT because they are winning!  I mean – how stupid are you if you believe that?



... Right now, the entire western narrative hangs on this kind of nonsense: Russia is about to be totally defeated, the Ukie army and people have won on all fronts, and Ze, backed by NATO, the EU, the US and the entire planet is about to deliver his conditions for a Russian capitulation.

The maps?
All fakes.
The local reports?
All fakes too.

So far, that has worked pretty well.  But here are the stone cold fact about the Ukie military:

Air Force: gone
Navy: gone
Long range, standoff capabilities: gone
Air defenses: gone
Regular ground forces: no less than 65% (some say up to 80%) of the Ukie military is surrounded and condemned
Assorted Nazi units: I don’t have the figures, but A LOT of them are now either in the Donbass cauldron or in Mariupol.  They will mostly not be taken prisoner, except for the leaders who will be tried and sentenced for their innumerable crimes.
So, in terms of the Russian goals, here is how I would score this:

Ukrainian disarmament: mostly already done, the Ukraine has nothing to threaten Russia with
Ukrainian denazification: only at the early start, but conditions are excellent and I am confident that most of the hardcore Nazis will soon be dead

...... On a strategic level, the Empire of Lies did successfully force Russia to openly intervene.  That is a fact and that is a defeat with the Russians will have to ponder over for many years.  I will repeat, here are two, alas very real, western victories:

Forcing Russia to openly intervene
Very effectively controlling the narrative



As the conflict between Ukraine and Russia continues to escalate and dominate the world’s attention, the increasing evidence that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is and has been working to create and arm an insurgency in the country has received considerably little attention considering its likely consequences. This is particularly true given that former CIA officials and a former Secretary of State are now openly saying that the CIA is following the “models” of past CIA-backed insurgencies in Afghanistan and Syria for its plans in Ukraine. Given that those countries have been ravaged by war as a direct result of those insurgencies, this bodes poorly for Ukraine.

... The CIA seems determined to manifest a prophecy propagated by its own ranks over the past 2 years -that a “transnational white supremacist network” w alleged ties to the Ukraine conflict will be the next global catastrophe to befall the world after Covid.
 
 

This analysis will be unpalatable to many in Australia and indeed in the West generally. It is hard for us to see beyond the all-enveloping narrative that surrounds us of Western good intentions with occasional mistakes in implementation, versus our horror comic negative mental images  of Russia’s President  Putin. The latter images are far from the truth but very compelling. The people who create and sustain our mental furniture are top professionals at what they do. They  condition  our thinking and emotions, through powerful images and memes as well as words. Highly intelligent people hate to admit they have fallen for such propaganda,  and often get angry when it is suggested to them that they have.
 
The fact is that there have been many speeches over the years by Putin acknowledging full Ukrainian sovereignty since the 1991 breakup of the former Soviet Union, an authoritarian state in which Ukrainian Communists had played a major leadership role. Putin consistently has asked for two things of Ukraine. First, decent  good -neighbourly  relations based on mutual respect and mutual security, as between the US and Canada. And second, as in Canada, respect for the full human rights of  Ukraine’s numerous ‘French Canadians’– the 50% plus of Ukrainians who share Russian native language and culture. This importantly includes a right to share in the formation of Ukraine’s national security policies and priorities. But the US  has at least since 2013 used Ukraine’s  Nazis, and there are plenty of those, as the spearhead of its determination to make Ukraine monocultural, militarised and permanently hostile to Russia.

Just because Putin asserts these things does not mean they are not true. I believe they are true.

Putin, President Macron of France and Chancellor Strolz of Germany  (as with Merkel before him) in recent years and weeks did their best to find pathways through the growing confrontation,  but in the end they could not halt the determination of Washington and Kiev foolishly to provoke  the Russian bear. Over months, Putin had warned the West to step backwards from the militarisation  of Ukraine, and to work with Russia towards a wider European settlement, reversing  NATO’s dangerous expansion towards Russia’s borders since 1996.(see my two recent essays on Russian settlement proposals.)

As usual, the West cherry-picked, they prevaricated, and– the  biggest Western blunder  of all– Washington’s Biden supplied powerful city-destroying heavy weapons to the ill-disciplined  and Nazi-infected Ukrainian army. The temptation to start using them was irresistible....


Ritter: Putin: Crazy Like a Fox

... In this age of politicized narrative shaping, which conforms to the demands of domestic political imperatives as opposed to geopolitical reality, fact-based logic is not in vogue. For decades now, the Russian leadership has been confronting a difficult phenomenon where Western democracies, struggling to deal with serious fractures derived from their own internal weakness, produce political leadership lacking in continuity of focus and purpose in foreign and national security relations.

... Rather than try to explain to the American people the historical roots of Putin’s concerns with an expanding NATO membership, or the impracticalities associated with any theoretical reconstitution of the former Soviet Union, the U.S. political elite instead define Putin as an autocratic dictator (he is not) possessing grandiose dreams of a Russian-led global empire (no such dreams exist).

It is impossible to reason with a political counterpart whose policy formulations need to conform with ignorance-based narratives. ...


The importance of the Russian peacekeeping operation in Ukraine

The main goals of the Russian peacekeeping operation are the protection of the Russian people in Ukraine, Ukraine’s commitment to neutrality, and the decentralization of the state in order to prevent an anti-Russian policy in the future in Kiev. Also, President Putin made it clear – that one of the goals is to denazify Ukraine.


"Discerning Vladimir Putin."

Contra ignorance.

Our minds regurgitate with the incessant propaganda leveled at Russia and its leadership. The other side of this moon is not to be missed: If the venomous propaganda is overwhelming, its success in mutilating Western minds is equally egregious to witness. “This is a semiprofessional question,” a friend in Hanoi writes. “In your long journalistic career, have you ever witnessed such an orchestrated campaign of hatred against one man and one country? I haven’t. Not against Milošević, not against Saddam, not against Gaddafi, not against Assad… The current one against Putin and Russia seems to break all records.”

 

Why Russian operation focuses on Donbass, Black Sea regions

The Russian forces would much rather avoid fighting the Ukrainian army as the “enemy” — with the exception, of course, of Neo-Nazi formations (as in Kharkiv and Mariupol, or elsewhere in the southeastern Donbass region.)

Evidently, Russians do not want to destroy Ukraine. The objective is revive Ukraine’s sovereignty under a Ukrainian leadership and help in its build-up as a strong enduring buffer against any future western invasions.



Day 4- SITREP: The gulf between popular perception and strategic reality continues to grow in Ukraine. If you only read Western media, you would think the Russian military was on the verge of defeat. In reality, they have a clear path to victory. Satellite imagery indicates that a massive Russian armored column, with +800 vehicles, is approaching Kiev from the north. At the same time, Russian forces in the East are working to link up and encircle a large fraction of the Ukrainian military. 

What we’re witnessing is a funhouse mirror version of the Gulf War. During that conflict, images of smart bombing broadcast into American homes highlighted U.S. dominance. Today, Twitter images of Ukrainian tactical success are creating a false narrative of Russian defeat. The single least appreciated fact about the current conflict is that Russia has only committed 1/2 to 2/3 of the forces it built up around Ukraine’s borders. It also has the ability to draw Belarus into the war, whose armored divisions would represent a potent “fourth wave.”

What Russia *has* suffered is a massive defeat in information warfare. ...

.... Russia today presents a paradox. On paper, it is a state with a GDP the size of Spain, whose economy is vulnerable to disruption by the West. But its *military technological capabilities* exceed ours on many axes. ....



My spidey senses tell me that Col Douglas Macgregor will not be welcomed back on Fox News after he gave a rather different take on what is happening amid the Russia-Ukraine conflict that does not toe the common media line. Jennifer Griffin was furious. The first presentation was during a segment with Fox Host Dan Bongino. The second presentation of essentially the same analysis was with Trey Gowdy. In both discussions Macgregor’s perspective reconciles the disparity between what the U.S. government, State Dept, and corporate media are saying -vs- what is visible. Essentially, Macgregor is saying that Russia does not want to engage a civilian population and is making every effort to avoid civilian conflict in those population centers.


In part this is because Putin knows the Western approach is a propaganda war that would be fueled by what it would look like if population carnage took place. However, if Ukraine President Zelenskyy does not acquiesce to terms, Putin could easily crush those centers with artillery and rockets. What Macgregor outlines would explain why these skirmishes always seem ‘off in the distance’. The western government and media perspective is to make it seem like Volodymyr Zelenski and the rebellious civilian misfits are beating the Russian army because that frames a better story. However, what Macgregor outlines is Putin not wanting to fuel the United Nations, NATO and State Dept narrative engineering, thus the absence of visible fighting.



... The scant news coming out of Ukraine is so infected with propaganda that it’s impossible to know exactly what’s going on there these early days of the Russian invasion. Some interested parties say that Russia is getting its ass kicked by a Ukrainian resistance. More temperate reports suggest that Russian forces are proceeding methodically to capture and neutralize Ukraine’s meager military assets. Apparently, Ukraine and Russia are holding a diplomatic parlay today at the Belarus border. You might style that as “peace talks,” but who knows? There are no real functioning international news agencies anymore.

The current CIA-approved narrative wants you to believe that Vlad Putin seeks to reassemble the old Soviet Union and will move next to capture the Baltic States: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania. I doubt this since all those countries have their own cultures rather emphatically hostile to Russia and required onerous operating subsidies from Moscow back in the Soviet day. Ukraine will surely be enough of a burden for Russia going forward.

An alternate narrative to the CIA’s scare story would follow the Occam’s Razor rule that the simplest explanation is probably the truth — namely, that there was no other way to stop Ukraine’s shelling and mortar attacks against the ethnic Russian population in the Donbas which, by the way, was carried out with US-gifted armaments. And there was no other way to disabuse the USA from the idea that Ukraine should join NATO and thereby become a missile launching base on Russia’s border.



.... What we DO know is that the USA has been threatening a long, drawn out guerrilla war against Russia on Ukrainian soil, akin to 1980s Afghanistan. They have already flooded the country with arms (and shipments are only going to get larger). The USA has recognized that Ukrainian forces are no match in the open field against the Russians, and that they will lose the war. What they seek to do is to bleed Russia as much as possible by way of an insurgency, while hammering it economically at the same time. The end game is regime change in Moscow, to bring Russia back to the 1990s, when western financial interests stole the country’s natural wealth thanks to assists from Yeltsin the Drunk and his oligarchic thieves.





So a congregation of NATO’s top brass ensconced in their echo chambers target the Russian Central Bank with sanctions and expect what? Cookies?

What they got instead was Russia’s deterrence forces bumped up to “a special regime of duty” – which means the Northern and Pacific fleets, the Long-Range Aviation Command, strategic bombers and the entire Russian nuclear apparatus on maximum alert.

..... Russia has its own bag of tricks: Meanwhile, we’re not even talking yet about Russian retaliation for these sanctions. Former President Dmitry Medvedev already gave a hint: everything, from exiting all nuclear arms deals with the US to freezing the assets of western companies in Russia, is on the table.



.... For many Ukrainian politicians, performing dirty tricks against Russia has become a familiar, much loved, and well-paid routine. So, that leaves just one way out of this situation — doing this sort of  job should become very painful, unprofitable,  and fraught with trouble.

The compulsion to promise not to attempt dirty tricks continues, but, unfortunately, only the United States can become the guarantor of the cessation of Ukrainian dirty tricks. But the Americans, on the contrary, pump Ukraine up with weapons and mold her image as the victim. This is despite the analysis of the situation for as long as twenty years back suggesting that Ukraine is the principal culprit of its own troubles. In those troubles its so-called partners are the accomplices.”


Streeck: Fog of War

So the winner is… the United States? The longer the war drags on, due to the successful resistance of Ukrainian citizens and their army, the more it will be noticed that the leader of ‘the West’, who spoke for ‘Europe’ as the war built up, is not intervening militarily on behalf of Ukraine. The US has given itself a special leave of absence, as Biden made clear from the start. Looking at its record, this is nothing new: when their mission gets unmanageable, they withdraw to their distant island. Nevertheless, as Germans look on, wondering where the US is, they may start to feel some doubt about the American commitment to come to their nuclear defence. That commitment, after all, underlies German membership in NATO, German adherence to the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, and the housing of 30,000 or so American troops on German soil.


Escalation and the broader conflict

... This same class of experts – the ones who were wrong on Biden, wrong on Iraq and Afghanistan – are now salivating at the prospects of war with Russia. And they’re doing so by misrepresenting the purpose and risk of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the mental health of Vladimir Putin.

.... Missing from the media’s coverage is push-back on these statements about Putin’s state of mind or the potential use of nuclear weapons. Their skepticism isn’t missing – it’s dead. Putin the Madman is the new talking point, the elite opinion that is approved for the masses. There’s little basis for their new talking point – certainly not in Putin’s February 24, 2022 speech where he calmly outlines Russia’s grievances and concerns, and their plans for Ukraine.

... Hill and Clapper’s inflammatory statements about the potential for Russia to use nuclear weapons makes zero sense in context of the conflict in Ukraine and Putin’s demands. Putin is winning the war. At the time I’m writing this, Russia is surrounding major Ukrainian cities and the Russian convoy headed to Kyiv is estimated to be 40 miles long.

... Then we get to the foolishness of escalation in light of Putin’s stated goals of the invasion. Assuming the latest reports are accurate, the purpose of this war isn’t to seize and occupy the whole of Ukraine into perpetuity. Putin isn’t demanding Ukraine be brought into Russia. Instead, Putin’s demands include:
  1. The disarmament of Ukraine.
  2. The neutrality of Ukraine (no NATO membership).
  3. The formal recognition of Crimea as Russian.
If those are the terms, then how much escalation is necessary? How much is justified?

Dare I got out on a ledge and say the U.S. does not have Ukraine’s best interests in mind. (The U.S. initially opposed the settlement talks.) More Ukrainians die as the war drags on.



FM Sergey Lavrov’s remarks at the high-level segment of the Conference on Disarmament, March 1, 2022

💬 Today, the dangers that the Zelensky regime poses to neighbouring countries and international security in general have increased significantly after the Kiev authorities started dangerous games involving plans to obtain their own nuclear weapons.

Rest assured that as a responsible member of the international community Russia is committed to its non-proliferation pledge, and is taking every necessary measure to prevent the emergence of nuclear weapons and related technology in Ukraine.

Foreign Ministry statement on the EU’s role in the developments in Ukraine

☝️ For many years, the European Union, posing as a peacemaker, lavishly financed the Kiev regime, which came to power in an anti-constitutional coup. The EU stood in silence while the population of Donbass was being exterminated and the Russian language was being strangled in Ukraine. It disregarded our endless calls to take notice of the predominance of Nazis in the Ukrainian authorities, and the socioeconomic blockade and murder of innocent civilians in the southeast of Ukraine. The EU conditioned its future relations with Russia on the implementation of the Minsk Package of Measures but has done nothing to encourage Kiev to start implementing its main provisions. At the same time, the EU gave Kiev money and visa-free travel and extended anti-Russia sanctions under far-fetched pretexts. The EU took part in Kiev’s performances, which put in question the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation.



The importance of neo-Nazi Right Sektor politicians in the Ukraine government and neo-Nazi militias (such as the Azov Battalion) to the Ukrainian Armed Forces, also goes unreported in the mainstream corporate media. The Azov battalion flies Nazi flags; they have been trained by teams of U.S. military advisers and praised on Facebook these days. In 2014, Azov was incorporated in the Ukrainian National Guard under the direction of the Interior Ministry. ..

So, when the leader of Ukraine essentially threatens to obtain nuclear weapons, this is most certainly considered to be an existential threat to Russia. That is why Putin focused on this during his speech preceding the Russian invasion of Ukraine


The cartel of western nations, who is otherwise swift and prompt in condemning anti-Semitism, look the other way, nay, openly arm and encourage fascist groups with neo-Nazi leanings, if that helps them in thwarting their opponents and reasserting their hegemony.



Invited to the Cnews set of L’Heure des Pros on March 1, 2022, war reporter Anne-Laure Bonnel recounts what Europe has not said since 2014 about the Dombass martyrs: “It’s been a week since the we talk about this conflict, but it has been going on for eight years and there have been thirteen thousand deaths ... Totally incredible thing, the French will learn – not on BFMtv – that, currently, the government of Kiev bombards its own citizens in Donbass. This is the question that Pascal Praud is asking himself and he remains amazed by Anne-Laure Bonne’s answer: “I do not take sides and I do not defend Putin, it is factual. .. The Ukrainian government bombed its people. There are eighteen-month-old children in cellars. Yesterday I was in a school and two teachers were cut in half, their bodies cut in half. » While Volodymyr Zelensky is applauded by MEPs, women, children and men are dying under Ukrainian bombs without worrying the European Union. 



Western arrogance remains high despite the fact that Russia has clearly demonstrated red lines in Georgia and Syria. But Kiev is not Damascus. Kiev was the capital of the Russian Empire long before Texas was a state of the Union.

Furthermore, Russia is not Afghanistan or Somalia. Russia is not only a nuclear superpower, but also one with weaponry that is far more advanced than the West’s.

The Western bully has been picking on the wrong would-be adversary, and for a very long time. 


Europe, censorship, and also an upcoming livestream with Gordon White

....... Let’s put this another way. Imagine we’re witnessing a fight between two people, one of them weaker than the other. And then we hand the weaker one something he can use to hit the stronger one back. And we keep doing it.

Unless the stronger guy is a complete idiot, eventually he’ll realise he’s got a few options. He can start hitting the weaker guy really, really hard in hopes of knocking him out faster. Or he can stop fighting altogether. Or, he can hit us.

The first option for Russia (hit Ukraine really, really hard) would mean civilian casualties. Maybe you haven’t noticed this, but Russia has been showing a very peculiar restraint regarding civilians, which the Ukrainian government and Western media is spinning as Russia just being ineffectual or Ukrainians being better fighters.

The US showed no such restraint in its invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, killing civilians without remorse because they knew it was a relatively quick way to make those nations surrender. Russia has always had that option, but it’s so far avoided it.

The second option, just stop fighting, would be super nice of Russia to pick. That’s the one we all want, and that’s what NATO and the EU are hoping for by giving Ukraine all these weapons. It’s also super unlikely, though.

The last option—hit those helping the weaker guy—means something very very awful. NATO and the EU are betting that will never happen, though Germany’s sudden reversal of decades of de-militarization suggests maybe they believe it might be possible regardless. .....



In 2008 as then-president of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili realized that his attack on Russian peacekeepers and civilians in South Ossetia had elicited a Russian military response that ended up with the Russian army practically knocking on his door in Tbilisi, he infamously appeared on a BBC interview voraciously chewing his necktie. It demonstrated to the world that the plucky US-educated leader who dared take on the Russian bear for the sake of "democracy" was in fact an unhinged and unstable figure (installed into power by the US-led "Rose Revolution") who found himself losing it upon realization that he was over his head and the US cavalry were not coming to liberate him.

..... It's all fun and games until the world blows up.
Soon it will become obvious that the comedian-president who has openly welcomed child soldiers, is forcing men from 18-60 to fight, has released hardened criminals from prison to fight on the front lines, and has called for foreign mercenaries to come fight for Ukraine is not currently scoring an overwhelming victory against the Russian military, as the Pravda-esque US mainstream media continues to report.

America: you get the heroes you deserve. How do you like your tie?



There’s a lot of nonsense going around including talk of Russia losing the war because less than 5 days into the war, they haven’t conquered Ukraine.

The German blitz of Poland took 5 weeks. The conquest of France 6 weeks, and people were astonished. Ukraine is the largest country in Europe except for Russia istself

The sources I respect say that Russia is taking losses, but the war is not in question and they are advancing about as fast as the US did into Iraq. Russia will win the war, though they may take more damage than they expected (but since we have no idea what they expected, who knows.) Ukraine is a modern equipped army: it isn’t Iraq with obsolete equipment, or Libya or Afghanistan.

The question is not whether Russia wins the war, it is who wins the peace.

What the US and Europe want is to turn Ukraine into a guerilla quagmire, like Afghanistan in the 80s, or Iraq and Afghanistan were for the US.

What Russia wants is to turn Ukraine into a guaranteed neutral state and withdraw its troops out of the country, minus Donbas and Luhansk.

The good result for the Ukraine, which most Westerners don’t seem to get, is what the Russians want. Austria was neutral in the Cold War and that was not horrid. A multi-year guerilla campaign will devastate Ukraine in ways that will take generations to recover from, because if the Russians have to fight an insurgency, they will be utterly brutal, as they were (successfully) in Chechnya.

Moralist yapping about right to choose is off the board. The only good result for Ukraine and Ukrainians is a negotiated settlement. The West egged them on and left them to swing, as the smart people said they would.

This video, predicting this in 2015 is pretty much required watching. ..


Einsenstein: The Field of Peace

... I read this morning of an upcoming parley between Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelensky. Do not think that it will be easy for either one of them to turn the locomotive of war in its tracks once it has built up such momentum. Each surely has a robust set of beliefs in which his side is the righteous party.

In the case of Zelensky, the righteousness is obvious: foreign troops have invaded my country’s territory and are killing my people. The horror of the onslaught is plain for all to see.

In the case of Putin, the righteousness comes, I suppose, from an historical narrative of NATO expansionism, missiles on Russia’s borders, oppression and mass killing of ethnic Russians in the Ukraine, and so forth.

The point here is not that each side is equally right. It is that each side believes it is right. In that mindset, justice and righteousness are the result of victory over the opponent. Short of the opponent’s total capitulation, to make any other peace is to compromise justice.

Unlikely though it may seem, let us hold the possibility of peace from this meeting. Here is one scenario: Russia agrees to an immediate ceasefire and withdrawal of all troops from Ukraine. Ukraine agrees to become a demilitarized country like Costa Rica. The Donbass region’s status will be determined in an internationally-supervised referendum. Zelensky’s government remains in power. And let me add a flourish: a nonviolent Peace Witness Corps from all over the world, armed only with cameras, comes to Ukraine to keep peace and help rebuild.

To reach an agreement like that would take something of a miracle. We certainly can’t pin our hopes on Vladimir Putin’s compassion, although judging from his interviews I don’t think he is a heartless man. Hardened, yes, and shrewd, but not the soulless monster war propaganda portrays. (That is a heavy accusation to make against another human being, but we tend to make it lightly in the heat of conflict. If you don’t believe me, look at Twitter.) In any case, even if Putin had the peace consciousness of Nelson Mandela, and even if Zelensky were not utterly dependent on a bellicose imperial power, still it would be hard for them to make peace now that the self-feeding fire of war fever has been ignited. If they make peace, both Zelensky and Putin will face intense criticism from militants in their own countries and abroad, who will accuse them of capitulation, appeasement, or weakness. Zelensky in particular will essentially be ending Ukraine’s status as a pawn of the West and will thus bear the fury of the US establishment that is at present howling for escalation.


The MIC, OGAM and FIRE Sectors Conquer NATO

... The recent prodding of Russia by expanding Ukrainian anti-Russian ethnic violence by Ukraine’s neo-Nazi post-2014 Maiden regime was aimed at (and has succeeded in) forcing a showdown in response the fear by U.S. interests that they are losing their economic and political hold on their NATO allies and other Dollar Area satellites as these countries have seen their major opportunities for gain to lie in increasing trade and investment with China and Russia.

To understand just what U.S. aims and interests are threatened, it is necessary to understand U.S. politics and “the blob,” that is, the government central planning that cannot be explained by looking at ostensibly democratic politics...

America’s Three Oligarchies in Control of U.S. Foreign Policy

It is more realistic to view U.S. economic and foreign policy in terms of the military-industrial complex, the oil and gas (and mining) complex, and the banking and real estate complex than in terms of the political policy of Republicans and Democrats. 



 
 



tweet vids:

Former Military - Something is not right about Ukraine (2min)

OMG ⚠️ OMG ⚠️ Journalist and war correspondent  Anne -Laure Bonnell ,  who is in Ukraine shocks the followers ‘I am not a party and i do not defend Putin , but the truth is, i am close to civilians ,what i say is that the Ukrainian army is bombing its own people

Woman tells truth about Ukraine live on French media. Hosts are stunned. Part 1 video






CaitOz Fare:

The Overton Window Is Being Shoved Toward Warmongering Extremism

... Noam Chomsky outlined this problem clearly when he said, “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum — even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.”

And that’s exactly what we are seeing here. Look at this soup-brained take by comedian Tim Dillon, for example:...




Other Quotes of the Week:

PCR: In short the dumbshit Zelensky was deceived and used by his American & European “friends” for the purpose of giving Russia a black eye in the presstitute media, and the dumbshit Europeans have shot themselves in the foot and are bearing the cost of the alleged “sanctions on Russia.”  What a stupid world the Western one is.  How much better it would have been to agree to Russia’s reasonable security concerns.

Andrei: Maybe the western leaders are very slowly coming to realize that while Russians don’t threaten, they don’t bluff either.  That is a “new normal” which is going to cause a lot of buttaches to the narcissists ruling the West…


Crawford: All that feels more frustrating to look back at when I realize that the vast majority of the Western Mandarins hold their positions by not understanding any of it, or actively denying it if they do. How can a system survive when it requires such a strong commitment to ignorance?



Long Reads / Big Thoughts:

The Varieties of Bullshit



[Not] Satirical Fare:

U.S. Army pushing mandatory gender pronoun training



Pics of the Week:









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