anthony

not about NATO! (until Jens says it was)

Glenn Greenwald, only just found his show and quite impressed with his lucid thinking. Canada and neo Nazis in Ukraine in there. 7 mins in Bill Kristol’s New War Propaganda Reveals the Real Goal in Ukraine. PLUS: Trudeau, Hillary, & Fox Blame Russia, w/ Lev Golinkin; & Update on Govt/Media War on Rumble | SYSTEM UPDATE #151 RUMBLE.COM Become part of our Locals community: https://greenwald.locals.com/ Use code "RUMBLE" to get 60% off everything at CBDistillery: https://www.thecbdistillery.com/ Follow Glenn: Twitter: https://twitter.

The brilliance of the indoctrination machine: inducing in mass minds that Ukraine is/was righteously defending itself - BUT - that Russia is/was not. (And has no moral or legal right to, anyway) The plain reality, both nations are defending themselves, one against NATO, Kyiv and the collective West. The other, Ukr, against a country, Russia, provoked into pre-emptive self-defence, by that combination. If anyone believes that Russia was not under severe threat from a sizable Ukraine/NATO Army, (and, later on, nuke missiles on its borders), and had to instantly respond before matters got much more dangerous, you're propagandized. And believing Russia has no right to protect its borders, the far future safety of its people or of the Ukr=Russian civilians about to be expelled/killed in an "ethnic cleansing" in early 2022 - for the West to grab Crimea/Sevastopol and the Donbass, and presumably, topple the Russian Gvt., create unrest and a probable civil war breaking up Russia ("divide and rule") to grab cheap natural resources and gain a geostrategic foothold over the next country in line, check your prejudices and premises. The nasty plan playing out before our eyes (for those who can see), was in setting both countries - defensively - against one another. (For which conflict self-congratulatory bureaucrats are celebrating is not costing "us" lives, just a bit of money out of the defense budget-- a bargain). They can openly tell the world that without shame. "Monsters", Johnstone correctly observes. This War Wasn't Just Provoked — It Was Provoked Deliberately SUBSTACK.COM In an interesting speech about the way US imperial aggression provokes violence around the world, antiwar commentator Scott Horton made reference to an April 2022 article from Yahoo News that had previously escaped my attention. The article is titled “

Peter, a saying goes - "if you're not part of the solution, you could be part of the problem". That applies I think to the West's poor handling, a huge overreach, of Russia, and somewhat to China. Rather than a show of strength, with Ukraine, what has become apparent to outsiders is how incredibly the West has sacrificed itself. The major problem is identifying Russia and China as joined together, a combined Asian geopoltical threat/peer competitor which needs containing/subsuming, one after the other. (There are big differences, the first being ideology). That's alluded to by generals and politicos as 'we have to make a final "example" of Russia's invasion to send the message to others - they cannot do the same'. I think this is dangerously short-sighted. What it does is notify China that they are likely next, raising alarm there. All of their leaders want their countries to be treated with respect - and, failing that, for NK, apparently with fear. That is where statesmen and diplomatic envoys enter. They don't have to approve of the regimes and leaders, just acknowledge that they know e.g. N Korea has its needs and security worries, as do their own countries, so cut out the attention-seeking display of missiles. A little carrot goes far, with the implicit stick not shown. But diplomacy seems to be a lost art. The perception is today that it is a sign of weakness - appeasement - to deal with dictators and authoritarians. I consider it a sign of character, dedication to reality and value in all humankind. The efforts of treating them as rational beings often reduce tension. The thing is to realize that nations cannot be coerced into some kind of perfection, but people volitionally change along with new generations born, they have to find their own way and the world wlll not be a Utopia.

For all this is a very well-reasoned argument by Peikoff, I was dismayed at one excerpt: "Because individual human life is the standard of value..." Again, there is ambivalence and misunderstanding of "standard" which created confusion for O'ists. I can't resist picking it out again. Exact words matter. Rand was specific: while the individual's life is his/her's supreme value, what is the standard of this value? "Man's life" is the standard of value for Objectivist ethics. That's like leaping from the concrete to the abstract and back again. A metaphysical standard, man's life, is an abstract measure - a gauge - by which one (individual) estimates one's level of application (right, by "the exercise of volition") to all the values/virtues - reason...integrity, etc. - in one's concrete existence. She thereby sets an *objective* justification for her ethics. Briefly - practice all the virtues and - you llve as "man". We'll get various subjectivist interpretations and acts from - your own life - being "the standard of value", which would morally justify all manner of deception, thieving and cheating and preying on others, etc. --in order to preserve and sustain your own physical life. Anything goes to stay alive, no? Then, Rand's system of ethics is just one more predatory "egotism". From which, making (or not preventing) a needless, not self-defensive conflict which you have the power to stop at little cost to you, but perhaps you see 'gain' in it, is irrational, immoral, and by the standard of value, anti-man's life. Those humans are other lives of the same species who have value in themselves, whether objectively explicated in an ethics, or usually not.

An ordinary repressive day under dictatorship.

The numbers (with healthy skepticism) are more readily believable from the Russian side. Simply, they have little 'to prove'. Their reports are hardly seen outside and restricted in several countries. Minimal to zero, compared to the MSM disinformation and lies global reach. They even report their battle setbacks. Also I'd say the more realistic Russian population, from long experience, is not so easily taken in and indoctrinated by their state media. Ukraine (et al) has to keep the victory-fiction running, or Western support will fall away. No one likes and backs "a loser". The vast human or resource sacrifices/self-sacrifices will be vindicated and morally justified - these utilitarian-consequentialists sense - only by victory or 'symbolic victories'. https://youtu.be/DsqIm3F02Rc

You'd have readers believe the wish-list figures in Ukr Pravda, from the Ukr General Staff but not from experienced US military observers with contacts on the ground, like Col. McGregor and many more? Gotten worse, several analysts report that casualties have jumped to a 10:1 ratio since this counter-offensive. The UAF is committing suicide against the Russian defense line. Anecdotes of desertions and surrenders by untrained conscripts shoved to the front, increasing.

Yes, and so said Stoltenberg. Not possibly just after any negotiated armistice, no, your NATO membership depends on "a victory". Which means they will never get it. And many more men to perish in the attempt. To beat Russia, Zelensky is desperately counting on that NATO membership now, that instantly invokes Art. 5, and then - what? Ukraine would not exist any more. The scumbag 'leader' betrayed his country, that is, alll of his Ukraine citizens, and is as much culpable as anyone for its destruction. "Safer", certainly. I wonder how many Ukrainians now are waking up to the realization they ( their Gov anyway) made an awful blunder. Firm neutrality - was their single path to peace and prosperity . They would have benefited richly from both Europe and Russia, in that location. The trend is towards non-aligned neutrality all over the "Developing Nations". "You are either for us or against us!" - the false alternative - will gradually become old history.

"Petal mines" fired into Donetsk dating *before* the invasion, but the contrived - "projected" - msm narrative that stuck, in world public opinion is: "Russians dunnit!" (to terrorize their newly "liberated" civilians, if you'd swallow that). The West is silent as Ukraine targets civilians in Donetsk using banned ‘butterfly’ mines — RT Russia & Former Soviet Union ON.RT.COM

Substack general roundup from Seymour Hersh FEAR AND LOATHING ON AIR FORCE ONE SUBSTACK.COM Biden’s anxieties over the Ukraine War and the election in 2024 come into view

Good show, Stephen Gardner with Larry Johnson

Russia is not going to "occupy" Ukraine. Never wanted to and cannot do it. One can take that to the bank. Logically, they would never try to impose an occupation on people ideologically opposed to all Russians . e.g. Galicians and the western regions. While nothing here is for certain, the consensus which most makes sense is that inhabitants of those regions who will vote to leave Ukraine and secede to Russia, with a wide strip that provides a protective DMZ for those regions from missile/guerilla attacks, will be the RF's outer range of conquest. At that point presumably they'll talk terms, which might mean (the remaining) Ukraine's regime change; no doubt there'll be formalized security guarantees for both countries, agreed to by NATO. What Putin was always after... Ukraine has already lost its legal, moral and sovereign rights to rule those - once loyal - citizens whom they'd been trying to kill and evacuate off their land. One might say those inhabitants have permanently lost their faith in Kyiv. What comes first, people or territory? Who has the primary moral right but the people in and of that land? Even if Ukraine -could- take back the lost territory, they would lose the people they'd mistreated. Kyiv had its chances, Zelensky and his sponsors should have taken the first, quite fair and reasonable (Minsk 2) deal on offer. But he apparently got carried away with the delusions of grandeur he was fed by everyone. Sad that this will reach the point where either side will have to capitulate, and if the reality had been firmly held to by other governments and militarists involved, they'd have admitted early on, that most unlikely would it be Russia.

Wrong, wrong, false and false and partly true (there will always be tensions in the military command during wartime). I hope there's a special place in Hell for the paid stooges and compromised media who've urged Ukrainians to keep feeding their lives into the War Machine ("because Russia's going to collapse. Just you wait!").

See, the trouble is like everyone informed by MSM, you noted and paid attention - only - to the latest dramatic act of "force". Horrors! Russia attacked and will occupy innocent Ukraine! Next, comes the attack on Europe! That nothing exists outside of what one has seen and been told and outside one's emotional prejudices, is subjectivist. To make it simple, a mental diagram. 1. "Big arrow" assault from West to East: 2014 until now. ----> (Kyiv's army trained/equipped by US/UK against the Donbass). 2. Big arrow assault from East to West: Feb 2022 until the present. <----- (Moscow's limited counter-assault into - mainly- the Eastern oblasts 3. A counter-assault from Kyiv with NATO help, eastwards/southwards since 2022, to newly "liberate" the Russian-"liberated" land. 4. Defensive line of contact by RF forces in front of the liberated oblasts, against which the last UAF army is taking heavy losses . 5. Who knows? Where it ends and at which new borders? To be impartial, who "initiated" the "force"? One does NOT have to cross a border to be the first user of force. What many people who actually live there in the East all report (ex-Urainians who still remain from the millions who ran into Russia for safety), for them this has been an ongoing 10-year conflict. The MSM deliberately kept a lid on the Ukraine civil war and now had the West believing hostilities began just last year. Out of sight, out of mind. I.e. Russia "did it" (for no sense or provocation!) By Kyiv breaking the terms of a formal multi-national treaty** and continuously attacking and trying to invade those oblasts and overthrow Russian-Ukraine dissidents (now for almost 10 years) - because they are ethnic "Russians" -- and likely (when victorious) continuing the aggression up to Russia's borders - yes, it can be said that Nato-ized Ukraine presented the threat of further aggression into Russia, itself. They might have invaded Russian territory, encouraged by their victory over Ukrainian-Russians. But that's futurist, if plausible, conjecture. Putin's invasion stopped that. Clear though, Crimea, without Russian resistance, would definitely have been attacked and fallen to this large force. The main thing, the 1-2 assaults - their order and timing. In brief: Kyiv was and is repressing, then killing (still) their own people whose sin was they were ethnic Russians. Unchecked, they were soon going to murder/expel even more. Make an objective, moral case out of that. [**Everyone knows now the Minsk treaty was a time-wasting stratagem to halt the conflict for a while, obviously, to build up the UAF for its conquest of the East with Nato's input. But by what special "rules" and official permission NATO was active inside Ukraine, a non-member, from 2015, and aided a non-democratic regime in a conflict is still not clear to me.]

Interesting, that "consistent adherence to principle" has been the theme Putin - a lawyer, btw - and Lavrov and others have constantly raised. This goes for you but not for me... On international relations, shouldn't the world be looking for objectively principled rule of law among governments, not subjective "rule by men" (the Gvt. officials)? In effect, what goes for "you", the West (e.g your unquestioned prerogative to respond as you see fit to potential or actual threats, on your borders, in neighboring countries or half-way across the world) but disallowed to anyone else, is called "rules-based order". Since who makes the "rules"? Never an unfavored nation, but the powerful, self-serving, in-group of nations. Obversely, Putin has often posed an international "law based order". Where one's standing/status/strength, etc., as a nation is immaterial. (He is more objective than some would believe, especially in foreign affairs. What I'm seeing - a lot more objective than the present Western leaders). Much of the world is beginning to move in that rough direction, a grassroots rebellion against domination or interference by outsiders, (for better or worse). If only in retrospect, this had to happen. (A dictatorship, of course excluded from that "law-based order"; and before the response by anyone -- Russia is no longer a dictatorship)

I take exception, if I am one of those Ukraine haters. Why was I insisting here on getting to talks, back at the start? Because I know how things spiral out of control, and had a rough idea of where this could go, and it wasn't good for Ukraine. Or Russians. Or Europe. Or the rest of the world. I'm not discriminatory, nor collectivist, I see only individuals, and the deaths and maiming of many thousands - of any nationality/ethnicity, is a moral offense. Rather, it was the West's Russian haters in Gvt. office and brainwashing media, who - by concealing/evading the fact that Putin was evidently ready for talks prior to and in the first months - but doing nothing - who wanted the war to go ahead, who relished Russian casualties - for one purpose, driving Russia down. Ukraine, the means to that end. Such are the 'lovers' of Ukraine. (With friends like these...) This, a preference for a needless, avoidable war - that could have been stopped with a phone call, and modest concessions - over peace is unbecoming to the leaders and people of free nations. Early on, it should have been the mature, responsible West which pressured Ukraine to take care of its ethnic divide, and secure equal rights for the Russian speakers, or else. I.E.: Kyiv was the initial, immoral party by its illicit treatment of fellow citizens - KYIV should have been warned, sanctioned if necessary, to get their act together, by the USA et al, LONG before Russia was. (On the moot assumption that there had been no interference and regime change helped along by Victoria Nuland and the war hawks, and no Nato (de facto) internal involvement gearing up for an expected war, etc.). Then, guess what? No invasion. Except Nato pressed relentlessly ahead at the ONE country, after all the ex-Soviets had been absorbed by NATO without Russia's protest, the one that RF presidents and rational US intellectuals warned they should not interfere in: Ukraine. Call the place Putin's paranoia. You 'go there', it can be for only one reason - against Russia's security - get ready for a certain response. Else, don't go. Now that I've heard from many politicians and sussed their delusions of grandeur and seen their reckless activities and cavalier attitude to lives, I don't see it as his paranoia any longer. The "potential" or implicit "initiation of force" from a permanent future of heavily armed, massive Ukraine army with many Nato military bases and with Nukes on its Russian borders, would have been a constant Sword of Damocles over Russia. (That was the plan. Reversing cause and effect: "Let Putin respond with preventive force as he certainly will, to our potential threat to Russia and overt, direct threats to the Donbas, Crimea; then we have him - and can innocently blame him for starting hostilities"). Putin is obviously a person who recognizes "implications" (that Oists ought to, too). Clear, he saw the above situation coming. No leaders would be allowed to put up with the ongoing fear and uncertainty by their populace. A little respect for other even, (in some respect) lesser or developing, nations and their individuals.

Small countries yes, whose people collaborated with Nazis, and are rabidly anti-Russian and were anti-Jewish. They also haven't gotten over the Soviets. Though left alone by Russia since independence and had no need of Nato protection. Similar to Ukraine, still exist neo-Nazi groups in Lithuania now. https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-7-2012-006775_EN.html Let's not be naive. Over there, one needs to be careful who one sympathizes with (to demonize Russia). Before you know it, one can be siding with Nazis. The enemy of my enemy is my friend doesn't cut it. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjY08eD4oqAAxXaiVwKHdkaCiw4ChAWegQICRAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fbrill.com%2Fdownloadpdf%2Fbook%2Fedcoll%2F9783657705757%2FBP000031.pdf%3FpdfJsInlineViewToken%3D171586147%26inlineView%3Dtrue&usg=AOvVaw1fJaQYaHN-JMBE_3I6eGR3&opi=89978449 "Nazi propaganda exploited the anti-communist and anti-Jewish sentiment that had grown during the year of the Soviet occupation, and con- vinced some Lithuanians that Bolshevism was a Jewish force, and that it was primarily the Jews who were to blame for all the hardships...".

Hmm, standard of value. "While (immorally) deterring peace talks". I said above. Jens Stoltenberg at Vilnius a few days back: NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg [...] "We will provide support to Ukraine for as long as it takes. Because unless Ukraine wins this war, there's no membership issue to be discussed at all". -- "Unless Ukraine wins..." Can you see what Putin saw? His "Existential threat"? Neutrality? There's no satisfying or dealing with Nato belligerence, it was coming for Russia next. No matter that Ukraine goes under, in the attempt (as it is) --you will keep fighting "to the last Ukrainian" (if you desire the glittering empty prize of Nato admission). The Ukrainians are worse than "proxy" combatants, they've been convinced by the adoring world to be "self-destructive" heroic slaves - to that final victory. Which, in the West's nasty notion of consequentialism, will claim undeserved moral supremacy in their public's eyes. While posturing as Ukraine's ... defender. Their premises laid bare by Jens S - these warmonger leaders strongly indicate contempt of any Slavic race, Russians or Ukrainians; both are lesser-human and can be "ethnically cleansed"/removed/subordinated for power, prestige and avarice. "Evil" martyrdom.

consequentialism noun Philosophy noun: consequentialism the doctrine that the morality of an action is to be judged solely by its consequences. --- Unsaid, the domain of this war is all about who's perceived to hold the "moral high ground". (The major aim of propaganda ). Who is killing more, holding more ground and therefore "winning this war"? (Not in doubt, despite msm propaganda). This alone determines the "mhg" for most people - the reason that casualty counts have been fanatically top of the public agenda. Everyone sort of understands subconsciously from much fiction, selected history and religious teaching - if "we" are righteous "we" will be victorious. Corollary: When we are victorious, we must by necessity be the morally righteous. That seems to govern the illogical moral thinking that is escalating the west's leaders' increasingly reckless actions. While (immorally) deterring peace talks. Therefore, the desperate collective West must not be seen to militarially- or morally - lose in Ukraine, expending all efforts up to the max. The Ukrainians serve only to be sacrificed for that cause. Throw the last human fodder to the cannons to maybe gain a little battlefield gain for daily headlines. Their lives matter little. Ultimate moral supremacy will be "judged solely by consequences". And if it goes the other way, the Russians aren't turfed out and emerge winners, overall, would this mean "they" have the righteous cause-- and that "we" were immoral? Yes, to be consistent with consequentialism doctrine. Ha, cognitive dissonance, a mental "flat spin" describes the lot of those fervently pro-Ukraine who try to resolve this contradiction. So much for "might makes right".

Not really, Michael. The same indoctrination goes on here. The same 'innocent Ukraine is winning' and superficial Russia vilification by reporters, Press and a public with fixed prejudices who seem not to know any background and don't want to know. I took the trouble over a year ago to find dozens of alternative sites and channels I regularly check for (greater) factual truth content. The West's war propaganda machine is either unreliable, or false and outright lying, in what it does NOT inform viewers - as well as what it simply fabricates. And is monolithic, fed outwards into the world from a very few state sources, Kyiv to Washington to London, etc. all constructing a single narrative, often with identical wording. Especially by the corporate-owned media (once considered more trustworthy- but who've sold out, aligned with government interests). A Swiss research group, pre-war in 2019, came up with a study: The Propaganda Multiplier. Worth a read, the graphic tells a tale. https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwj_zZHUnfz_AhV9SvEDHbTBBmsQFnoECAsQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fswprs.org%2Fthe-propaganda-multiplier%2F&usg=AOvVaw24vszEFMwjKtGcJVMnHFw5&opi=89978449

"The benignant sympathy of her example". As fresh, today https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjD0Z-BjPz_AhWaSPEDHXRWDJ4QFnoECAkQAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fmillercenter.org%2Fthe-presidency%2Fpresidential-speeches%2Fjuly-4-1821-speech-us-house-representatives-foreign-policy&usg=AOvVaw0xW2IMcTWtgHZPY-ZGS17g&opi=89978449 "She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force.... She might become the dictatress of the world. She would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit...."

Knowledgable and experienced ex-soldier yet entirely wrong premises. Historical determinism, etc. Worst of all this discourse 'sets the stage' for some incendiary false flag event, to allow the West a virtuous "off-ramp".. Repeat: the winning side has no motive for a nuclear escalation, the losing side does. The superior (conventional) weapons Russia has in quantity, and its bolstered army haven't even been fully employed yet--and they clearly had and have no intention to "carpet bomb" towns and cities and mega-deaths of civilians to achieve Ukr capitulation. Let alone - use a tactical nuke on one. Russia's "escalation" could occur in many small steps--long before nuclear. As for helping Ukraine recover lost territory - too late. The West eschewed with disdain the diplomatic route, implementing a minor - and agreed upon - concession for autonomy for the Donbas; many officials have stated e.g. Josep Borrell EU: this "will be decided on the battlefield" i.e. no negotiations to be entered into with Russia. (Premised on the fantasy of Ukraine beating Russia!). Now they will have to live by their macho talk.

Michael, The magic formula "regime change" is the West's simplistic answer to international "problem-children", real or perceived. I'm very sure that the 2014 coup, a "Color Revolution", in Ukraine was tested and anticipated as the prequel to recreating one later in Russia. Ukraine's role, merely a convenient stepping stone towards inciting "a grassroots revolt" in its neighbor. Punitive sanctions and a prolonged war would hurt the Russian population, then, upheaval and very possibly civil war, aimed at fragmenting Russia into several weak nations (like the Baltics) easily dominated, politically and financially, for their geo-strategic position in Asia and of course, their natural resources. (I make clear, I'm in the radical "laissez-faire" camp. I think "might" does not "make right", and other countries - and individuals - must be left alone, while not dismissing diplomacy or temporary assistance : i.e. they have free will to self-determine themselves for better or worse, often the latter. Whether one approves of them, their ideology, governments and leaders, or not - live and let live -- "left alone" to decide their own destiny). I regularly ask myself lately, was this, and any, 'emergency' engineered by the "powers that be"? or was it a 'natural' and unforeseen event taken advantage of? (The pandemic and its possible origins and dictatorial controls comes to mind) A cynical exploitation of an unhappy situation("never let a crisis go to waste") - or - a plot by the global elites that down the line predictably will be cause of a bloody conflict, then to be also exploited. The third possibility, non-exclusive, it can be both in many mixtures. All in all, to the bitterness of many outsiders, it seems Russians are most satisfied with Putin. Regime change is not on the cards. One more time, as with misjudging its economic resilience and military strength, they reveal how arrogantly they totally failed to identify Russia and the Russian character. Predominantly I've found Russians didn't welcome any war, but they understand the limited options Putin had left to maintain Russian security and sovereign integrity. A major cause of his popularity is forgotten, that he singly pulled the country out of a very bad period for the majority of people. I detect an implication from Russia's harshest critics, unspoken mostly: Russia was starting to succeed, "too, damn well". A rising "peer competitor" as geo-political analysts say. And why should increasing productive competitiveness hurt anyone else?