Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Like tiny rivulets of meltwater trickling off March snowbanks, small but growing narratives are beginning to flow against the tides of the opinions that have dominated the talking heads and writing hands for many months. Contrarians are popping up in more and more places to say, wait a minute! Stop clutching your pearls and gnashing your teeth, things are not quite as bad as we thought.
ITEM: The redrawing of Congressional districts, required every ten years on completion of the national census, is almost complete. For two years the war drums have told us that the people in charge of the red states were going to gerrymander their districts so that they couldn’t lose an election ever again, and would become, at least in those states, a permanent ruling class. The process is almost complete, and the result seems to be the fairest political map in 50 years, with an identical number of districts leaning Republican and Democrat. In each case it’s between 216 and 219 seats, with 218 being the number required to win the majority.
ITEM: In 2021, more than 440 bills designed to restrict voting access were introduced in the legislatures of 49 states (however, only 39 bills passed, in 19 states). Again, the war drums relentlessly proclaimed the end of democracy as more and more people were stripped of the right to vote. Turns out, however, that a) most of the restrictions enacted in fact only removed recent measures designed to ease access to voting during the pandemic (such things as drive-through voting and mail ballot drop boxes were unheard of before 2020), and b) as restrictions, they don’t seem to work. Case in point: In Texas last month they held the first primary since the enactment of what the pearl-clutchers described as their draconian anti-voting laws. But as it turned out, nearly three million Texans voted — a double-digit increase in voter participation from 2018.
ITEM: Since the end of World War II we have been schooled to be afraid of Russia. It was good for the “defense” budget. We had to give it up for a while after the collapse of the Soviet Union, but we happily took it up again while Putin rebuilt the Russian Federation to — in his mind — its former glory. (I used to have a dog who, when I spoke sharply to him, would yelp in dismay. We were — and still are — like that with Russia.) Now Russia has exposed its full might to the world with its invasion of Ukraine. Its conscript army has terrible morale, is badly trained and led, abandons its equipment and the battlefield at the first opportunity. Its equipment is old, fragile and unsuited for what it is being used for. Its quartermasters seem unable to keep the troops fed and equipped, the machines fueled or the guns supplied with ammunition. Its communications either don’t work, aren’t properly used or are insecure. I propose that we just stop being afraid of Russia: its economy is one-twentieth the size of the United States and smaller than that of France.
NOT AN ITEM: On the other hand, the narrative that should be scaring us out of our Yoga tights and causing us to set up such a clamor that no politician would dare avoid it, is the narrative about climate change. The accepted narrative is, “bad things are going to happen in 50 years or so, and we need to do something soon.” The reality is that terrible things are already happening, with ever increasing frequency and severity, and no country in the world is making a serious effort to deal with it.
So it’s not a matter of, “don’t worry, be happy.” It’s a matter of checking your narratives to make sure you’re scared to death by the right ones.
[” I propose that we just stop being afraid of Russia: its economy is one-twentieth the size of the United States and smaller than that of France.”]
You should know better than to fall into that trap Tom.
It’s like saying that “since your pancreas is not even half a percent of your body weight, you could very well do without” kind a thing …
Germany certainly begs to differ at the moment …
I’m not saying don’t deal with Russia, I’m saying don’t deal out of fear.
In 1962 JFK nearly started WW3 (probably the closest we ever came!) over the Soviet missiles in Cuba. A hostile power placing missiles “on our doorstep” was an unacceptable threat for the US to live with. The missiles were “super”-sonic and 1,100 miles away. Putin spent 8 years reiterating the same sentiment about Ukraine’s NATO membership. Except the missiles are now “hyper”-sonic (4X faster) and 400 miles away (3X closer). Same effing thing. Same situation, except, this time, we’re the “Russians”. The whole enchilada is about Energy anyway (Nordstream 2)
The insertion of Russian missiles into Cuba was an aggressive, offensive move, to which the US did NOT respond by invading it and making is the 51st state. . NATO’s entire purpose and history is defensive. Putin has to worry about NATO only if he attacks a member country. His feelings of claustrophobia because of adjacent NATO countries arise from his desire to recreate the Soviet Union, which is not going to happen in today’s interconnected world. And yes, today everything everywhere is about energy.
“NATO’s entire purpose and history is defensive.” HAH! A detailed analysis of your response would be gilding the lily after THAT statement! Ask the folks of the tawdry warlord dystopia of Libya (formerly Africa’s most prosperous nation) exactly WHAT “aggression” NATO was responding to when they wilded their poor nation into a nightmare. Samantha Powers’ “rape squads” was outed (on a phone hack) to be an IMF LIE. Oh, and remember the nation formerly known as Yugoslavia? Now several broken pieces? Clinton’s unilateral bombing campaign initiated ethnic cleansing, destroyed the country, and gave us the criminal regime in Kosovo. Again, 400 miles v. 1,100 miles, “hyper”-sonic, v. “super”-sonic.
Additionally, correct me if I am wrong. . . but Khrushchev was responding to the U.S. placement of missiles in Turkey. And that after the missiles were removed from Cuba we removed ours from Turkey. I could be wrong.
Yes! And if Ukraine had forsaken NATO there’d have been no invasion. That is the adult version. The Russia-baiters’ claims of the invasion’s basis being ANYTHING else are childish speculation and demogoguery. Witness: “[Putin’s] his desire to recreate the Soviet Union,” This is not an intelligent statement. Putin knows the invasion of Ukraine alone is a strain on an economy smaller than S. Korea’s. The degradation of Western explanations to grade-school playground taunts is pathetic. And, BTW, in 1962 there were plans in DC for invasion (a second one… after the bay of Pigs) and even an A bomb attack (recall LeMay [Dr. Strangelove] was chairman of the JC of S.) But back then, as AJ points out, adults resolved the issue by removing all threats.
At the time of the invasion there was no prospect of Ukraine joining NATO in the foreseeable future. So there was plenty of time for diplomatic efforts instyead of butchery of innocents. Also Kim, here we prefer to conduct our discussions without disparaging the people with whom we disagree.
You are correct. But the missiles went into Turkey in 1959, so the Cuba ploy was not a direct response. And if memory serves, I think it was Kennedy who used their withdrawal to sweeten the pot in negotiations with Khruschev.
There can be no more aggressive move than to place anti-ballistic missiles systems within range of your opponents ICMB’s fields.
How many times do we have to go over these basic principles of nuclear war? Have you ever heard the term nulcear primacy? If you haven’t, I suggest looking it up. It is official US policy, and in order to achieve it, it requires AMB’s on Russia’s borders.
Geo-strategic kindergarten.
“NATO’s entire purpose and history is defensive.”
Unbelievable. Tell that to Serbia, Libya, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, or China today, as they are repeatedly being warned, by Nato, that if they don’t start toeing the line, Nato’s crosshairs are going to be fixed directly on them.
Even Wolf Blitzer at CNN is reporting such things. What news are you watching? Re-runs of Howard K. Smith?
If I go to geo-strategic kindergarten, will I learn how many sovereign countries NATO has invaded and occupied? How many cities’ streets NATO has strewn with dead civilians? How many hospitals, schools, churches and residential neighborhoods NATO has bombed to rubble? Will they teach me how Russia is completely justified in what it is doing in Ukraine because, someday in the distant future, Ukraine might join NATO?
And will they teach me how to disagree with someone without being bloody insulting about it?
Russia used it’s bombers for the first time yesterday Tom, struck the abandonded factory in Mariupol where the last remnants of Azov are holed up. Nato, on the other hand, bombed “targets” in Serbia for 77 straight days, to no military purpose, and spent seven months literally bombing the richest county in Africa, Libya, back to the stone age.
If you think the Russian Federation has been brutal in it’s execution of this military operation in Ukraine, you haven’t seen nothing yet. I believe the Russian general staff has finally “convinced” Putin to quit tip toeing naked around the country (or else take a bullet to back of the head). They’ve lost too many men following this kid glove approach, probe and negotiate, probe and negotiate. Clearly no one wants to talk to them, hasn’t for decades, so it’s time to use the firepower that’s being held in reserve, the 99%.
It’s time for the Russian General Staff to start conducting real military operations, and get this thing over with.
Going back many years on this blog, and a decade and a half elsewhere, I made the case that war in Ukraine (or WWIII) was inevitable if Nato kept advancing, for obvious – yes Tom, kindergarten – reasons.You do not allow a killer inside your front gate and then leave the doors open for him to enter and slit you throat. But that is precisely what Vladimir Putin did, and the reason I started calling him the Neville Chamberlain of Russia starting in 2008, and have been continually shocked ever since that the man hasn’t been violently removed.
Every combat ready Ukraine brigade was trained by Nato. They are fully integrated. One of the reasons they’re fighting so effectively, all their battlefield intell is being directly co-ordinated by Nato, and they know how to use it – and too because they have raised the tactic of hiding behind human shields, with the guidance of proxy loving America, to a grand geo-strategic artform.
You’re a good man Tom, but a blind one.* Know this though, the real slaughter is about to begin, and I do not believe it is going to contained to Ukraine.
I’ve warned you many times, the deeper we get into this, the more aggressive our country will become in seeking WWIII. There are two reasons for this, one, it is the only kind of war we can win, full nuclear, and two, because our naton is utterly helpless vis a vis China. Take the firepower of our nuclear arsenal out of the equation, and we barely register as a gnat on China’s ass.
https://www.youtube.com/c/WalkEast/videos
Take a few walks around China Tom (they’re quite peaceful, and the – – centrally planned :) – aesthetic everywhere on display, is astounding to behold. They want no part of war. They want to be left the peaceful pursuit of all-time historical greatness (with Chinese characteristics, of course). But we, and our abject Nato proxies, are not going to allow them to.
Because we will never accept second banana status, and we will kill this planet dead in order to avoid it.
*Me too. I was partially blind most of my life. It’s hard not to be, bombarded as we are 24/7 by propaganda. Still, no apologies. It is up to you take those blinders off. The information has always been out there, and even now, we are not quite yet in full Orwellian mode, so there is a window into the truth still available. I suggest you take it, for you’re own sanity’s sake.
Have to admit that I’m a little surprised to find you taking notice of unexpectedly sanguine developments. I don’t have the time or inclination to track everything, so these neutral to positive outcomes escaped my attention. You’re not exactly recommending “don’t worry, be happy” but are nonetheless taking a different approach from your normal laser focus on myriad things wrong. My pessimist bias (fully acknowledged) tells me to resist even small measures of relaxation of vigilance over dysfunction and corruption. Indeed, I still believe that things are actually far worse than most are willing to admit and that the whole house of cards can tumble at any point or provocation now. I agree, however, that identifying real threats and preparing properly would be a better course of action — except that by now it’s far too late to avoid worst case scenarios. We’re stuck.
Regarding your assurances about Russia, I would not downplay the danger of antagonizing another nuclear power, which NATO has been doing for decades (not defensive but the very same encroachment in reverse Kim Worth notes in the comments above). Until this year, Russian leadership has mostly absorbed it but finally drew its line on the map decisively with Ukraine. Further, the fallacy of entering into the mind of an adversary the U.S. created for itself and concluding that you know his true ambitions (e.g., rebuilding the Soviet empire) in defiance of actual terms being offered in the conflict is risible. Freshman level error, IMO.
Ever notice how many people confidently claim to know what Putin’s true motives are? That’s the result of 5-6 years of increasing anti-Russia rhetoric. Even though I don’t listen to much mainstream news, it didn’t escape my notice that we were being primed to accept Russia as the enemy. (And unfortunately, Russia obliged by what I regard as unprovoked violence, though they do have legitimate grievances.)
It wasn’t so long ago that Russia was just another country not quite up to our enlightened standards, whose worst crimes were being anti-LGB and occasionally poisoning dissidents. A large but economically weak former superpower whose point of view we didn’t even try to understand, so we generally ignored them – until the Democrats needed somebody to blame for their embarrassing 2016 losses. Then suddenly “Russian hacking” was to blame for everything. (As if we don’t meddle in foreign elections all day long.)
But they are a nuclear power, and we antagonize them at our peril. It’s not so much that we fear Russia, Tom, it’s that we fear this border war expanding into WW3. What do you think will happen when American or European soldiers delivering heavy weapons to Ukraine get hit and incur casualties? I wake up every day hoping not to hear that we have declared war on Russia or vice-versa.
Since Trump threw his hat in the ring 2014-15, the US MSM has been cautioning all to be wary of “fake news” EXCEPT when they do it on behalf of the establishment.
“President Joe Biden later said it publicly. But three U.S. officials told NBC News this week there is no evidence Russia has brought any chemical weapons near Ukraine. They said the U.S. released the information to deter Russia from using the banned munitions.”
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/us-using-declassified-intel-fight-info-war-russia-even-intel-isnt-rock-rcna23014
The lesson here kids is that lying, like waterboarding, sleep deprivation & daily beatings are bad except when we do it for a good cause. And I stress “WE” because its only the US empire who allowed to do these things.
Basically the US accuses their enemy de jour of committing a horrible act that they themselves have done or are doing.
‘Agent Orange, exposed: How U.S. chemical warfare in Vietnam unleashed a slow-moving disaster’
https://theconversation.com/agent-orange-exposed-how-u-s-chemical-warfare-in-vietnam-unleashed-a-slow-moving-disaster-84572
‘Agent Orange Wasn’t the Only Deadly Chemical Used In Vietnam
The “Rainbow Herbicides” left a lethal legacy.’
https://www.history.com/news/agent-orange-wasnt-the-only-deadly-chemical-used-in-vietnam
The record is clear on which empire has perpetrated chemical warfare on civilians. The same one that is the only empire to drop nuclear bombs on women, children, the elderly and infirm.
My rule, if I pay attention to them at all, is all US establishment media is a lie or fake news or spin, by default. If you are a proven liar, you lose the benefit of the doubt and increase the burden of proof on yourself.
NEWS FLASH! US establishment media is not needed to stay informed of world news.
If your spouse and your friends lied to you as much as US corporate state media and US politicians do, would you still keep them in your life?
Maybe you trust Yves Smith? After 15 years, I do. To paraphrase Robert E. Lee when he learned of J.E.B. Stuart’s death, she never brought me a false piece of information.
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2022/04/russias-campaign-in-ukraine-and-the-wests-response-the-end-of-the-beginning.html
Just so you know, Russia doesn’t use conscripts in combat. Off the top of my head, the Federation calls up 130,000 conscripts every six months, they serve one year, and then their done. The closest a Russian concript might’ve gotten to the front lines in this conflict is driving a truck in-country or serving in a field kitchen.
The conscript thing just main stream media Orwellian noise, or the only thing it can produce these days.
What we’ve seen so far in Ukraine, is Russian units, both good and bad, following their COC’s oders, Vladimir Putin’s orders, which in many cases, especially up North, meant making deep probes into enemy territory at battalion strength, each battalion expected, in worst case scenarios, to more or less live off the land!
It’s hilarious if you think about it. In modern warfare, under the watchful gaze of US/Nato satellites, columns of 20 to 40 vehicles were expected to roll down highways in the open in an environment where hand held munitions can destroy armor from 40 kilometers away.
But, that was the plan Putin chose from the packet of plans presented to him by the Russian General Staff prior to the invasion.
Clearly, Putin made a mistake. The probe and negotiate plan didn’t work.
Luckily for Vlad, each and every one of the plan packets he recieves from his Generals allow for the mistakes of misguided politicians.
Note: It looks like the Western neo-liberal wannabe President of Russia may no longer be a neo-liberal wannabe. He might just be an MMT man now Tom, which means, the banks of Russia must prioritize Russia, and the central bank of Russia must work for Russia, or else.*
So, as I’ve been predicting for more than decade, it is all coming down to public banking vs private banking. Debt free money creation for the public good and the greater national interest, vs interest laden central bank money creation for the global 1% – wherever they hail from.
Who will win? Well, my bet’s on public banking, because as I’ve been pointing out almost religiously over the years, if you take nukes out of the equation, the privatized Western nations are nothing more lambs in a slaughter pen,and the lion in the pen, MMT practicing China, quite possibly has enlisted to its side a most formidable fellow predator, MMT (?) practicing Russia.
*To me, the most interesting thing that has happened in this conflict so far, is the long time head of the Russian central bank, Elvira Nabiullina, a classically trained neo-liberal privateer, not only hasn’t been fired or executed, she’s been re-upped! This is despite the fact that it was on her watch that the Russian central bank failed – aka openly committed treason – during the fairly mild sanctions rounds of 2014-15, which were unnecessarily far more crippling to Russian economy than the current ones (trillions of rubles lost), and just last month allowed the West to steal $360 billion, or fully half, of Russia’s sovereign wealth.
So maybe I’m wrong about Vlad. I’ve often said, neo-liberals never learn, nor do they change their stripes, and neo-liberals do count among them the vast majority of the most dangerous and pathelogical humans this fragile planet has known, and that’s why they must be eliminated.
Everywhere, if life is to continue.