Note: Far away in distant 2015 I wrote a article I entitled “The moral yardstick of the Ukrainian war (Saker rant)” and I want to repost it today. Since 2015, things did not get better, they only got worse, especially in Zone A. So here are my thought about that issue, at least they were in 2015. Please let me know what you think. I will resume my “normal” blogging tomorrow.
Kind regards
Andrei
***
I just got home from a 6 hour long trip to get my daughter to college. On the way home, I was alone in the van, driving through the huge Ocala National Forest, and I wanted to listen to some music and just think. While I was going through the 32GB of music on my player I realize that there were two artists whom I used to love but whose music I did not want to listen to: Yuri Shevchuk and Boris Grebenshchikov (aka “BG”). But let me backtrack first and explain.
I love Florida and I am happy here. But my nostalgia for Russia is like an open wound, always open, always hurting. One of the ways I found to transport myself to Russia, if just a little bit, is to listen to Russian music. Sometimes, doing this makes the pain even worse, but often this works like a kind of short-acting anesthetic: I feel like I am at home, amongst my people, where I can let my guard down and just be myself, if only for the duration of a song or two. Truly, this is hard to explain and only an exile can really understand how powerful a song from back home can hit you when you are far, far way, even in a beautiful place. And I have been away for 20 years now…
And yet today, I did not want listen to my two favorite singers. Something in me told me that it would only hurt, but provide no comfort. Why?
First I bash some Russians
I used to say that one should never conflate the artist and his/her talent with his/her political views. Even during my years of rabid anti-Communism I loved to listen to Mercedes Sosa and I still love to listen to Richard Strauss, even though he, unlike Wagner, was, if I am not mistaken, a bona fide Nazi. Listening to Bill Evans (my favorite Jazz musician) does not mean that I endorse heroin any more than listening to Bach (my favorite Baroque composer) makes me a Protestant.
And yet I don’t want to listen to Shevchuk or BG any more.
Shevchuk’s hatred of Putin is so stupid and so crude that it got him on a very short list (just under 40 names, iirc) of “Russian friends of the Ukraine” issued by the Ukronazi junta in Kiev (the list of banned Russian personalities currently includes, iirc, over 600 names, including Pushkin) . As for BG, he actually traveled to Odessa to and joined Mikhail Saakashvili on a barbecue party where BG sang for the man.
BG sings for Saakashvili
Now I know that both Shevchuk and BG have fried their brains – Shevchuk pickled his with vodka while BG shrunk his own with LSD and other drugs.
But my problem is not with their brains, it is with their heart! How does their heart not tell them that the conflict in the Ukraine is not just ‘a’ conflict, but the armed expression of the most rabid and hate-filled russophobia ever. How can they not know, not feel, that even the German Nazis never had so much hatred for Russia in their hearts as the Ukrainian nationalists?! Conversely, how do they not realize that those fighting for the freedom of the Donbass are not just your garden variety separatists but quite literally modern day heroes who took up arms to resist absolute, genocidal evil?
There is another Russian singer whom I love: Vladimir Vyssotskii (1938-1980) who wrote a beautiful song called the “Ballad about Struggle” in which he describes how when children read books about heroes always imagine themselves in the role of the hero but that it is important as an adult to really take a stance against evil. You can check out this song interpreted by a Novorussian solider with subtitles from Tatzhit here: http://10.16.86.131/novorossiya-militiaman-singing-ballad-of-the-struggle-by-vysotsky-eng-subs/. I would like to translate just the last part of the song again, not so much in a poetic way (something I am quite unable to do), but in an attempt to convey the key ideas:
You cannot forever live in dreams
Fun times do not last very long
There is so much pain around
Try to pry open the hands of the dead
And grab the weapon they hold
And see for yourself, having grabbed the still warm sword
And donned the combat armor
The true value of things
Find out for yourself whether you are a hero or a coward
And experience the real taste of combat
If you have never had your meat off a knife
And if you have just observed it all with your arms crossed
And if you have never challenged the traitor or the torturer in combat
Then it means that your life was entirely worthless and vain
But if you hacked your way with your father’s sword
And if you have swallowed your tears
And if you have found out the true value of things
In a real combat
Then the books your have read as a kid were the right ones.
I first heard the song when I was 17 and for me it was clear: my life would be the proof of my own worth and the worth of my upbringing. At that moment I decided that I would not just stand by and observe, but that I would fight evil as soon as I could identify it. True, I was naive and ignorant, and instead of making my own judgments about what was good and evil, I swallowed the propaganda which was fed to me by my family and the society I lived in. But that desire to stand up for what is right and good and to oppose evil is something which I never lost, even when I understood that the ideals of my youth were wrong.
He read the right books as a kid
There is a point to this digression and it is this: I believe that no matter how talented artists like Shevchuk and BG are, both their life and their talent are wasted because they missed this key moment in Russia’s history: the moment when absolute evil showed it ugly face yet again and attacked. What this also shows to me is the total disconnect between these artists and the people they supposedly take their inspiration from: the Russian people (who support Putin at the 85%+ range). And that is, alas, an old Russian disease.
It is the curse of the Russian people that our (supposed) intelligentsia always feels like it needs to validate itself by opposing the regime in power: to be a “real artist” you just have to be in opposition to whomever is in power – it gives you this special “chic” of a self-declared “conscience of the people”, a sort of “martyr by proxy” where the artist himself is left completely unmolested and lives the good life, but somehow “feels” and “expresses” the sorrow of those (innocent ones, of course!) whom the regime “persecutes”. And Shevchuk fell into that trap. And if that was the full extend of his personal dislike for Putin I would not give a damn about his views. But Shevchuk’s dislike for Putin is so ideologically driven that it follows that whatever Putin does is also, by definition, bad. Even when Putin stands up to the Nazis in Kiev or the AngloZionist Empire. As for BG – his position is even worse. He does not give a damn about “politics” or “governments” at all. Which would be all well and dandy if it wasn’t for the fact that others, much less privilege than him, are sacrificing their lives or limbs to oppose evil. And so, indeed, And if you have just observed it all with your arms crossed. And if you have never challenged the traitor or the torturer in combat. Then it means that your life was worthless.
Yehuda Bower put it even more simply:
Thou shalt not be a victim.
Thou shalt not be a perpetrator.
And above all,
Thou shalt not be a bystander.
For all their immense talent, Shevchuk and BG completely missed the key moment where their heart should have told them to take a stand. But their hearts remained silent. And so I don’t want to listen to them any more.
And that feeling of not wanting to listen to them is not limited to them.
Next, I bash a few Americans Leftists
For years I have listened to David Rovics whom I interviewed for this blog and whom I called the “beautiful voice of the American resistance”. His amazing lyrics, always set to beautiful melodies, where like a breath of fresh air in a country where the zombification of the general public has reached truly Orwellian levels. Sure, I was baffled how Rovics could clearly not “get it” about 911, but I also realized that he was what I called a “Chomskyite”, i.e., somebody who “unless Chomsky said so” just does not see things. Just like Amy Goodman or the folks at Real News Network. And Chomsky did not “say so”. So Rovics, like a big part of the so-called “progressive” or “liberal” “Left” in the USA, did not know what to make of the conflict in the Ukraine. For the very same reason Shevchuk got stuck in this own logical fallacy: Putin.
American Liberals and Progressives are stuck because fundamentally they are still very much part of the system. Sure, they have disagreements with the Federal Government and with the mainstream politics, but when push comes to shove, they are stuck, unable to really cut their “mental umbilical cord” is you want. The best example of that mental paralysis of the US Liberals/Progressives is their blindness about 911: not only has the controlled demolition of WTC 1 2 and 7 been proven beyond reasonable doubt, but the Federal Government has basically admitted that 911 was an inside job (see sidebar).
[Sidebar: for those who have not read this here, I will repeat it: The US government has admitted , thought NIST, that WTC7 feel in free fall acceleration for 2.25 seconds. Why is that important? Simply because that means that a number of floors of WTC7 disappeared instantaneously and symmetrically from under the roof of WTC7 (free fall acceleration means no resistance besides air). There is only one possible way to remove a section of a building instantaneously: by explosive power. Yes, the admission by Uncle Sam that WTC7 feel for at least 2.25 seconds is an implicit admission that explosives were used. And since Uncle Sam has admitted that only explosives can explain what was observed on September 11th, Uncle Sam has therefore also admitted that this was a controlled demolition an ‘inside job as no outside actor, nevermind some semi-mythical ‘al-Qaeda’ could have had access to a super secret building like WTC7. Only Uncle Sam could have rigged that building to bring it down in a few seconds.]
The problem for the US Liberals/Progressives is that they have to reject this evidence because of its implications: that the US ‘deep state’ was willing and capable of murdering thousands of innocent US citizens to embark on a series of imperialist wars. That, to a typical US Liberal/Progressive is literally crimethink and, therefore, totally unacceptable. The more sophisticated members of the US Liberals/Progressives also realized that there was no way that the Administration of Dubya Bush could have had the time to rig the towers or, for that matter, to write up the huge Patriot Act. This had to be done long before Dubya got into the White House. So clearly some elements of the Democratic Party were “on it”. Rather than accept the evidence at hand, the Liberals/Progressives preferred to simply look away and pretend like this never happened.
Vladolf Putler?
Same thing with Putin: the entire US corporate media and all the talking heads have declared urbi at orbi that Putin is a dictator, a tyrant, a dangerous ex-KGB man with a maniacal drive for power. That he is allied to evil and ruthless Russian oligarchs and shadowy “secret service” types who, together, are concocting devious plans to restore the Evil Empire, occupy the Baltics, even possibly Poland, and to bring world civilization and progress to a bloody end. He wants to kill all homosexuals, he threatens to nuke the planet and he wants to be a Czar. He is both the “new Hilter” and the “new Stalin”. Having endorsed this load of crap, how could they possibly declare today that Putin is not the cause of the civil war in the Ukraine or that the AngloZionist Empire is supporting bona fide Nazis who use ballistic missiles, multiple rocket launchers and chemical weapons against their own population?
Again, the facts must be wrong therefore they must be rejected.
And so David Rovics, the “beautiful voice of the American Resistance” has literally nothing to say about this war. He is all over Palestine, Ferguson or even Walmart – but a real genocidal Nazi regime in Europe is, apparently, beyond his field of vision.
And, in conclusion, I address the “noble Europeans”!
The European society is as thoroughly purged from any real spirituality as it if filled with dogmas. I won’t list them all here – this rant is already too long – but I will only mention the main one: the “Dogma of Dogmas” in Europe is that Nazis are bad, bad, bad, bad!! Very bad. Like really so unspeakably bad, that they are way worse than all the others. The Nazis committed the Crime of Crimes and no civilized European would ever EVER want to have anything to do with those evil, evil, evil, evil Nazis!!
The civilized European is so outraged with the Nazis that he is willing to ban any type of putatively racist speech. He is willing to jail any historian who would dare to question the officially accepted narrative about the so-called “Holocaust” or the obligatory figure attached to it (the Holocaust is the only genocide which has an official figure – 6 million – attached to it under an unspoken but nonetheless mandatory dogma. Try suggesting, say, 5,5 million or, God forbid, even less and you will immediately be suspected of being a Nazi which, as I have mentioned, is bad, bad, bad, bad!!!). And while historians go to jail, the civilized Europeans are sending money and weapon to a REAL Nazi regime in Kiev. For the life of me I cannot imagine a worse hypocrisy. Apparently, Nazis are only Nazis when they go after Jews. When they go after Russians, they are not “real” Nazis. The anti-Jewish Nazis are bad, bad, bad, bad and bad, but the anti-Russian Nazis are, apparently, rather good, maybe even “good, good” (only 2x “good” as to not be as good as the anti-Jewish Nazis are bad).
The new face of Europe?
So please allow me to be rude here and remind everybody that the majority of “civilized Europeans” did nothing or very little to oppose Herr Hitler and only minority truly did resist (the strongest resistance was in Serbia and Greece – two countries which nowadays the “rich” Europe is trying hard to destroy). That the majority of Europeans did nothing, or again, very little to stop the mass murder of Jews and that the Europeans did not liberate themselves from the Nazi yoke, but that they were liberated by “Communist Russian hordes” who account for 80% of all the destroyed Nazi military might (the remaining 20% were picked up by the Anglos, very late in the game). Off all people on the planet, the Europeans ought be the very last ones to ever show some sympathy for a Nazi regime, especially one focusing its genocidal hatred against the country which reduced the promised “1000 years Reich” to a mere 12 years. Forgive me, my dear Europeans, but if your “anti-Nazism” is reduced to jailing historians while fully siding with Nazi Banderists in Kiev – it is absolutely worthless!
The moral yardstick of the Ukrainian war
These examples all point to the same reality: the war in the Ukraine has turned into a moral yardstick separating those who “read the right books” and those who are “not a bystander” from those who are, forgive my language, simply full of shit (those offended by my choice of words can replace it with “scatophores” – sounds better, right?).
There are, I suppose, circumstances where one can respect his opponent. But there are also circumstances which make that quite impossible. The civil war in the Ukraine is, at least for me, such a situation. Backing the junta in Kiev – regardless under what pretext – is not only wrong, it is deeply dishonorable. In fact, it is despicable. I don’t give a damn of what people think about Putin or, for that matter, about Russia and the Russian people. I really don’t! And I can forgive those who were initially confused or ignorant. But too much time has passed, things have become so crystal clear that even the dumbest of ignoramuses has had the time, by now, to connect the dots. And I don’t care if you are Russian (like Shevchuk and BG), American or European. If you have anything but total disgust with the evil freak show in Kiev I have nothing but contempt for you.
The Saker
the value you speak of, referring to the song of Vladimir Vyssotskii is the value of the people who lived and fought the great war. my grandfather was one of them. my grandfather was sent to war on the wrong side of history, the same wrong side in which my country Italy finds itself again. I return home after being taken prisoner by the Russian army in Italy on foot, it took more than eight months to return home to his family in a destroyed country. blacker in the face and redder in the heart. in his wandering in the woods in search of berries and roots in order to survive, I meet a Ukrainian woman who saved his life, hiding him in her house and feeding him, while in the rear where he had found himself the bands of Nazis were looking for deserters to shoot them. In the end my grandfather was one of the lucky few, most of his companions died of starvation, cold or were shot by the Germans who considered them deserters. the few tales of him referred to when the Italian army was on the other side of the Don River, and at night they heard the voices of the Russians stationed on the other side. I imagine that they sent to die in war in cardboard shoes, they understood that they were there as the invaders, and that the Russians were defending their land from the Nazi machine. the Italian soldiers in their entirety were not guilty of war crimes, it was not in their nature, they were certainly soldiers, but they were not bloodthirsty criminals. who writes this is now a citizen of the Russian Federation, a country who most of all welcomed me into his arms, and gave me the opportunity to understand at what level Western propaganda had slipped into every cell of my body. probably for a force that guides my destiny I already had the antidote to this subtle coercion in me. now I can definitely say that I am cured. I lived in America Africa South America Asia and of course Europe. my wife for a strange twist of fate is Ukraina. and my children may grow up in the values we share in the Russian homeland. I have always tried to identify myself with every culture in which I have lived, and I have understood that there is no difference beyond the color of the skin and the somatic features, if you have chosen the trade of good every heart is the same and as a result of resonance it vibrates together to your . peace will return for sure, but now we have to wage war to get it. a fraternal hug to you.
Hi Saker,
Rather than commenting on your article, I want to say something about the blue flag in your post. This is the first time I have seen that representation, but for years I have been aware of that similarity in my subconscious.
Comparisons are superficial and can only go so far, and the Nazi regime/ideology was completely reprehensible, but the similarities between 1942 and 2022 are nevertheless startling.
1] Look at the maps of the present EU & the Third Reich circa 1942. They are eerily similar in extent.
2] Where was the fighting going on then? The Ukraine & North Africa (Libya)
3] Who was in and out? The UK was out then and is out now (Brexit). Spain is in the EU now and was nominally in then, under Franco, allied with the Axis powers as an ostensible neutral. Finland and the Baltics were ceded to the USSR, due to the Stalin – Hitler Pact, and would have preferred to be with Germany.
4] Germany was and is the dominant power in both.
5] The EU is an administrative state and not really democratic.
6] What were the economic issues? Access to Russian oil, raw materials and Ukrainian wheat. And a push for continental autarky… then, synthetic fuel, now, renewables.
7] US financing got them both started.
8] And, from the Russian point of view, they were attacked by Nazis in 1941 and now again in 2022.
Again, I don’t want to make light of the Nazis, but I do wonder what might have happened in some alternate version of history, where peace treaties were signed and the Nazis were eventually removed from power and/or mellowed over time. Would the results be similar to the current version of the EU?
To see that flag reminded me of all of the above. It is a strange convergence. IMHO
The Saker wrote:
In 2015, Abraham H. Foxman of the ADL wrote an article, “What We Learned From Auschwitz”.
In the article Foxman makes reference to
“Pastor Martin Niemoller’s famous lines about the consequences of not standing up in the face of evil”.
You know the lines well, which begin:
“First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out because I was not a communist.
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist.”
But, who learns? The ADL now (March 22, 2022) brushes off and minimizes the Nazis in Ukraine
and is careful to point out that they don’t attack Jews.
https://www.adl.org/blog/why-is-putin-calling-the-ukrainian-government-a-bunch-of-nazis
Why is Putin Calling the Ukrainian Government a Bunch of Nazis?
By Andrew Srulevitch, ADL Director of European Affairs
Q: So you wouldn’t term as Nazis even those who march with the red and black flag?
“There are neo-Nazis in Ukraine, just as there are in the U.S., and in Russia for that matter.
But they are a very marginal group with no political influence and who don’t attack Jews or Jewish institutions in Ukraine. Putin’s propaganda is so far from the truth that it doesn’t survive the first contact with even a little knowledge.”
“Of all people on the planet, the Europeans ought be the very last ones to ever show some sympathy for a Nazi regime, especially one focusing its genocidal hatred against the country which reduced the promised “1000 years Reich” to a mere 12 years.”
Seems maybe it didn’t end yet, just had a long suspended animation, after all the paperclip boys did wind up in management, no?
The eminent Dr. Robert Epstein psychologist has been talking about the hacking of humanity for a good while now, a new kind of propaganda that goes way beyond any kind of conscious decision making.
My infatuation with TV ended in 1979 and had a serious long, interruption, a 4 year hitch in the USN, 73-77. Now with smart phones and streaming video, god knows what is being implanted. In all of us.
Is there another channel playing, when we think we are watching one thing, are we actually being indoctrinated by another? Seems likely to me. So yes people’s ignorance is infuriating, but is it nature or nurture. Is it possible that simply bathing in Wi-Fi waves could influence our brains? Might our use of channels associated with google and the like be less innocuous than it seems?
This topic is under researched. Reminds me of the slim pickings around psychopathic behavior scientific investigation. Lets not get a lot of inconvenient facts messing up our plans for Empire expansion. Psychopaths do not fund research into their disease.
I don’t think there is a lot we can do to rescue truly indoctrinated Nazis. Send them to their maker seems most merciful.
I do not know the answer for the woke masses deluded, it just seems long term we need more than dismissive name calling to deal with it. Any kind of functional democracy is impossible if half, or more, of the populace is well & truly brain washed. Divide and conquer from tech. More deadly than ever.
Zelenskyy will Speak to the Norwegian Storting on wednesday 30.03
A Fox crossed the Stortinget the 28.03. in Native American culture They belive the fox is a Trickster who will play jokes on people or even lead them to their death, according to the Indian tribes of the Great Plains.
They should now they them selves are wiped out.
The Coup in Ukraine in 2014 is akin to Vidkun Quisling. to use this name will wake the norwegians up.
On 9 April 1940, with the German invasion of Norway in progress, he attempted to seize power in the world’s first radio-broadcast coup d’état but failed since the Germans refused to support his government. From 1942 to 1945, he served as Prime Minister of Norway and headed the Norwegian state administration jointly with the German civilian administrator, Josef Terboven. His pro-Nazi puppet government, known as the Quisling regime, was dominated by ministers from Nasjonal Samling. The collaborationist government participated in Germany’s Final Solution, a genocidal program targeting Jews.
Quisling was put on trial during the legal purge in Norway after World War II. He was found guilty of charges including embezzlement, murder and high treason against the Norwegian state, and was sentenced to death. He was executed by firing squad at Akershus Fortress, Oslo, on 24 October 1945.
The term “quisling” has become a byword for “collaborator” or “traitor” in several languages and reflects the contempt with which Quisling’s conduct has been regarded both at the time and later.
Norway was supposedly liberated on 8 May 1945. The constitution prohibits the death penalty.
How come Quisling was executed, and not our latest Nazi traitor Mr. Breivik ?
Cher Saker, merci de ce billet très personnel et émouvant.
Je suis catholique française et je soutiens à fond la Russie de Vladimir Poutine pour lequel j’ai une grande admiration. Je considère les orthodoxes comme mes frères, hélas séparés mais aimés et admirés surtout en ces jours de douleur, et je prie chaque jour pour la réunification de la tunique du Christ.
Je me bats comme je peux en divulguant articles, vidéos et autres analyses, y compris les vôtres, bien sûr, car je me fais un devoir de réinformer pour que famille, amis ou autres, ne puissent pas dire qu’ils ne savaient pas !
Nous sommes plus nombreux qu’il y paraît, mais le terrorisme de la pensée qui sévit dans l’UE est tel que beaucoup n’osent pas s’exprimer ouvertement. Le temps est venu où l’Occident et particulièrement la France, va payer très cher son apostasie, sa lâcheté et son consumérisme effréné. Soljenitsyne l’avait bien vu et nous avait prévenus.
Que le Ciel vous inspire et que Notre-Dame de Kazan et St Georges soutiennent les armes russes dans ce combat apocalyptique du Bien contre l’Empire du Mal.
Zabo
———————–
Deepl-translate from mod:
Dear Saker, thank you for this very personal and moving post.
I am a French Catholic and I support Vladimir Putin’s Russia wholeheartedly, for whom I have great admiration. I consider the Orthodox as my brothers, unfortunately separated but loved and admired especially in these days of pain, and I pray every day for the reunification of the tunic of Christ.
I fight as best I can by divulging articles, videos and other analyses, including yours, of course, because I make it my duty to re-inform so that family, friends and others cannot say that they did not know!
There are more of us than it seems, but the terrorism of thought that is rampant in the EU is such that many do not dare to express themselves openly. The time has come when the West, and particularly France, will pay dearly for its apostasy, its cowardice and its unbridled consumerism. Solzhenitsyn had seen it well and warned us.
May Heaven inspire you and may Our Lady of Kazan and St. George support the Russian arms in this apocalyptic struggle of Good against the Empire of Evil.
Zabo
The liberal left “Chomskyites” Andrei/Saker mentions have exposed themselves totally since the 2014 Maidan coup d’état in ex-Ukraina. They have demonstrated repeatedly that their supposed “anti establishment” beliefs are a total & utter fraud & they are what Chomsky was widely accused of being after he & Howard Zinn compromised themselves over 9/11, “establishment gatekeepers”. Chomsky took grate offence to this accusation whilst never doing anything to rectify it, instead he did a 2 hour pompous interview with his buddy Mike Albert of Znet/Zcommunications (originally the website for the radical left “Z Magazine”) where he raised these accusations of being called a gatekeeper & he attempted to laugh them off, but did nothing to actually address the arguments used against him. I once once a regular reader of Znet, I stopped going on that site earlier than 2014, I can’t remember when, but I emailed their site in & around that time in a comment where I criticized Chomsky for his take on the Russian return of Crimea. Chomsky had appeared at Chatham House, the Royal Institute for International Affairs, an unusual place for an anti-establishment radical self-described anarchist to give a talk, where someone asked him in q & a if he thought the Russian “annexation” of Crimea was illegal. Chomsky replied that yes, it was illegal, & then he did something incredible, instead of go into some of the background, talk about the Maidan coup d’état, the rise of Nazi paramilitary groups in Ukraine like Pravii Sektor & Azov & Aidar, Chomsky started talking about his old favourite central America, & US crimes in El Salvador. I couldn’t catch my breath, it wasn’t that I was especially surprised, like I said, the guy outed himself over 9/11 & to be honest much before that on a whole range of issues – for those that are interested, see Peter Dale Scott’s commentary on Chomsky & how the two of them parted company as colleagues as early as the 1970s because of what Dale Scott recounted as Chomsky’s reluctance to delve into the “deep state” & outright refusal to discuss personalities within the ruling oligarchy, such as notorious robber baron banking families such as the Morgans, Mellons, Warburgs, Schiffs etc. etc. But Chomsky just flat out avoided talking about the Maidan coup, much less the Nazi phenomenon in Ukraine & US support for it – he skipped the matter by going off on something completely irrelevant to the question that was asked. Now Chomsky most certainly knows better, but he just did not want to get into it. Why? Well, it goes back to him being an establishment gatekeeper, like the vast majority of the so-called “left” in the western hemisphere, they are just a bunch of total fakes. Even someone like John Pilger, who was once quite pally with Chomsky, & parted ways with him some time ago on the Russia & China issue, recently refers to Russia’s operation in Ukraine as Putin’s stupidity – or something like that, I’m paraphrasing, but he used some derogatory term. So even those that seem to have more conviction about them, even they, in the end, fall for the establishment line. I know it’s tough, I mean people have their livelihoods at stake, but if you are someone claiming they are on the “left” & anti-imperialist by definition, well, if such a person waivers, they are at the very least a hypocrite, but at the worst they are a malicious deceiver & yes, an establishment gatekeeper, creating the pretence that there is a critical discourse & open debate in the western world, which when it comes down to it, there actually is not.
I forgot to mention the conclusion of my email to Znet criticizing Chomsky on Ukraine – this would have been around 2015 – I stated what I stated here, saying Chomsky’s refusal to discuss the Maidan coup & Nazism in Ukraine essentially reveals that he is holding water for the empire as well & playing a game of deception. Mike Albert replied, Znet’s editor, in a truly infantile idiotic matter, basically accusing me of holding water for the “Russian empire”. That was hilarious, but very revealing as well. Because there is one thing that unites western leftists more than anything, & that is a common hatred for Russia. Chomsky himself, by the way, is said to originate from Russia, he claims from Tomsk, on his father’s side, which is also the origin of his name, he maintains. His father supposedly fled anti-jewish repression in Czarist Russia – yes, that old chestnut.
It is truly a shame but the
Khazarian mafia controls most of this planet including the music industry and especially in Ukraine, their homeland. These fake Jews are a menace to humanity and we’re going to use Ukraine to start World War 3 by attacking Russia luckily Putin found out their plans and with Trump’s blessing attacked Ukraine Trump is in control of the US Military and will not allow them to interfere with Putin. God bless Putin. George
Excellent sales video for the British-Swedish NLAW anti-tank missile used from a high position against a normally armoured T-72:
“Where did the expression “Calm as a tank” come from?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6-Dwk2jsIk
Poor Ukrops have been sold a pup!
It’s just a detail and I don’t wont to be splitting hairs on this, but I will scratch that itch – it was Yugoslavia and Greece, not Serbia and Greece – Yugoslav partisans were comprised (in very large numbers) of Slovenians, Croats, Bosnian Muslims, Montenegrins and Macedonians as well, not just (or mostly) Serbs. There was also a large number of Italians (in Istria) and even a German partisan brigade (Ernst Thälmann), which (allegedly) inspired particular ire on Hitler’s part.
Tito himself was of mixed Croatian-Slovenian parentage, and a great number of legendary partisan figures (e.g. Ivo Lola Ribar, Marko Oreskovic, Nada Dimic, Stjepan Filipovic etc.) were also Croats, Slovenians etc.
Great article though.
It sounds to me like from cognitive dissonance of those within Zone A, self-rationalizations to deal with the dissonance, and social media as a form of self-applied horse blinders.
I think it’s fair to reduce this to the erosion of the capacity to resist manufactured consensus when it’s tasked to support evil. Another way to describe the conditioning: the ‘right’ thing to say and do is ‘wrong’ when it’s without approval, status (approved influences for example), and at the wrong time as determined by authority – even if the wrong is deadly for all involved. The non-aligned are being systematically worn down and marginalized while having to expend resources to wake others who clearly don’t want to wake up.
I think it’s easier to support potential like-minded people who have demonstrated the willingness to question rather than converting people who have every incentive to go along (and may fight to hold on to those incentives!). The ‘go along’ crowd is just that. It’d be wonderful if they joined, but failing that? Best case, they stay neutral and fit in after the fact of whatever new reality takes hold. A large fraction may be cowards but if that’s so, it’s better they stay neutral than to fight for other side. Someone can work on the cowardice problem later – if there’s time. Groups enjoying (letting rot )the fruits of and claiming credit for other more worthy group’s sacrifices is as old at time. Likely to remain so until a better accountability scheme is found.
Case in point about the conformity conditioning that everyone experienced: Leaving aside the deaths caused exclusively by covid-19, I contend the lock down to slow infection was never the point from the perspective of ‘ruling class’ in the west, who certainly did not let this crises go to waste. The point was to subdue freedom of thought, actions, trade and association in the public by shock and awe. That is, basic concepts of freedom and privacy as understood in the west – even if a good portion has devolved into an illusion over the last century. And the attack did not come from the expected direction except to those paying attention; instead from private businesses, fellow friends/family, social media feeds, with all the force and backing of government decree using basic necessities as leverage. In other words, the ‘contract’ of people vs government is being re-negotiated in real time and not in our favor. To me, it looks like enforced compliance to absurdity was the whole point. Made-up example to illustrate a point – and not far off: ‘hop on one leg’ while holding nose or get banned from shopping for basics, stick one finger in each nostril when outdoors while remaining inside a plastic bubble or suffer fine/imprisonment, denunciation sessions by surprise announcement while reciting the following every 10 minutes or face termination from job: ‘water is breathable’, ‘there are two neon-green suns’), ‘gravity makes objects accelerate upward’. All the while the participants know it is refutable, illogical, easily observable as false, and is causing acute harm themselves (livelihood, relationships, education, social development, physical and mental health, etc). For two years and counting. I see the lock-down measures as a raw demonstration the of power of ‘policy makers’ with various sprinkling of additional protocol – the sillier, the better – to drive the point home. Worst, it seems governments/private org have taken a strong liking to the new powers – becoming more comfortable wielding it as a united class. And so much worse – an acknowledgment of that power by the overwhelming majority the recipients ie acceptance of the new ‘terms of service’. Which is: They rule in partnership, not serve. Even if some of the measures are being rolled back, the precedent is set and the the laws are enacted. The rollbacks are just relief and can be ‘snapped back’ at any time for any reason as internal sanctions. The conformity is now weaponized for other agendas such as all things Russian. And next, all things – fill in the blank. Or maybe some other scapegoat class that Zone A populations ire can be focused on to explain the coming food/energy disruptions (Russia – for now).
NON-violent goals to get out of this predicament (war, for example), off the top of my head. Also in answer to a question Saker asked last week:
1. A way will have to be found to change the incentives that make people go along with the narrative. Make it less favorable to comply. Also in that: current incentives are such that some people are enjoying the power of appointing themselves private state-sanctioned enforcers. Have to be made to understand the consequences (!non-violently! please), in which it falls squarely on their shoulders alone – not the collective in the form of some bailout.
2. Moot or destroy the profit motive of media networks in pushing for conflict. And not just the media – policy movers too. Hint: take a look on who’s on the board of directors of the major media networks everywhere. And take a look of the stock portfolio of their ‘retired’ guest speakers. A lot of armaments sales, properties, energy stocks and shorts. Also, strong implication that not a few have a properties or business investments in Ukraine. Target that financially. Somehow make it very unprofitable.
3. Target ie disrupt the ability to cognitively disassociate so that wrongs aren’t magically right if someone else is doing the same thing. So wrongs done against others are understood to be wrongs against themselves by proxy. And actions are clearly associated with reactions consistently and most important – swiftly.
4. Some way to disrupt enforcement mechanisms of conformity so that coercion is nulled to a level where it isn’t meaningful.
5. Some sort of mirror construct that would reveal to the ‘go-alongs’ the full ugliness of themselves and what they’re supporting in a way that’s impossible to look away from. Suspect they wouldn’t like what they see and want no part of it. Might even relearn empathy, although personally I’d settle for neutrality and dare hope for passive-resistance.
6. Parallelization to fulfill wants/needs – food, shelter, water, technology. And alternate paths to bypass gatekeepers. I
7 ( In conjunction with 8). Everyone would have to take names and document everything, then store local storage devices so there’s no possibility for remote deletion or tampering. Multiple copies with hard-copy for high value stuff. Necessary so that the ideologies responsible and their associates don’t chameleon their way into the new organizations. Or structures could be designed in such to render that aim useless.
8. Perhaps several tens/hundreds thousand local chronicles worldwide. Multiple independent historical records, each having multiple copies held in different jurisdictions (meaning nations). It’d be important to know who’s who, who did what and why. Decentralized and the more chronicles the better where everyone checks everyone’s work. Almost like an aspect of a blockchain . Complete with backup documentation ( see #6 ). All in case the ‘The Saker’, and like-minded are not the ones who’ll write the history books. Some say local records are covered by smartphone, cloud and social media apps, but that’s the problem. It’s centralized and the records held are never more than one corporate buyout, term of service change, algorithm, or device’s OS update away from remote deletion or lockout.
> And yet I don’t want to listen to Shevchuk or BG any more.
Same thing with Makarevich (one of Time Machine leaders, Creole Tango Orchestra, etc).
While i was not real fan of him, i used to aprpeciate some… ornamentalism… he did in his music.
He, a komsomol “golden boy”, tried to pretend himself anti-CPSU rioter. That safe “home sofa” kind of rioters, that channeled up youth rebelliousness in a safe way, without actually attacking state structures, nott in any immediate ways at least.
Yeah, he was a fraud at that, but he was tallented, in his own way.
My dad was a huge fan though.
Then… Then there was Ukraine.
I remember i heard there was some British punk (in music sense), who discouraged and insulted UK and everything British. One day patriotic (he would perhaps say dumb) commonners met him on some London bridge and gave him bad thrashing. He, reportedly, did not whine about it. It was his war, and he got a return fire. Unlucky but expected.
Well, Makarevich wrote one bald song, addressing Russians, “why there is always not enough for you?” explicitly implying them be stupid greedy arrogant land-grabbers.
Would it be some gangsta-rap disrespect song now one would probably batted an eye. But form Makarevhich, who always cultivated quiet contained intelligent bard image – that was quite and affront. Divorce song? People heard it that way. Some pro-westerners cheered up, others just turned page on him.
Concert tickets stopped selling. Even always mildly pro-western MSM took issue.
…And he then went all public demanding Putin to prohibit media to badmouth him. This clown, always anti-Putin pro-freedom on surface demanded censorship crackdown as soon as “free press” no more helped to fill his pockets.
I am not sure i listened to one of his songs ever since. Maybe i did, but guess i uppressed those memory if i did. Music and poetry should not be blamed, true. But regardless, those songs for me got intertwined with such a load of disgust, that i just could not enjoy them any more.
—-
Meanwhile there is Canadian band Rush. They always were aynrandian anti-commie and radically pro-individualism pro-egoism band. And they came from pro-UkroNazi Canada.
I still listen to thei music occasionally.
I have no beef with them. Yes, they are alien, maybe enemies, but they always were, clear and open.
So i learnt to separate them and their musical talent from get go. When i was enjoying their music i always diffirentiated it from them as persons. And i still do, and it works.
Think with Makarevich, Grebenshchikov, Shevchuk – is that we considered them being “our ilk”, representing our voice. Maybe not mine or yours personally, but “our voice” as in voice of large strata of fellow Russians.
That is why them turning coat feels like betrayal. That is why it fills their image with disgust.
Rush songs were not our songs, and whoever Rush are – we can appreciate their talent abstractly, as something remote.
We used to feel those M.B.G. as “our culture”, “our songs”. They proved not to be.
> But my problem is not with their brains, it is with their heart! How does their heart not tell them that the conflict in the Ukraine is not just ‘a’ conflict
That is an interesting point, because it works both ways.
There was that band that you’d think you would just step over without ever noticing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diskoteka_Avariya
An explicit fast-food of music, a shallow chicks-bear-moshpits cheering tunes with equally braindead “lyrics”.
Absolute void.
And then in 2007 (sic!) this suddenly made this:
video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_na1JMpeF8
rus lyrics: https://teksty-pesenok.ru/rus-diskoteka-avariya/tekst-pesni-zlo/5235200/
It was not 2014, it was not even 2008 yet!!!
Where did they fet that “abyss edge” feeling from???
Even the video’s very beginning was explicitly made to show the “our feast during plague” warning.
Of all the artists, why THEM were crying early warnings?
First thanks for the factual and true contribution to erase any doubt among confused people.
The truth is that Europe is back on national socialism behind the curtain; ecology, clean energy, green society, humans as a commodity, our superior European culture.
I hear more and more people in closed circles knowing the six million lie and that Hitler were much more intelligent and able than the history written. “Hitler defended the German people from the Versailles Treaty, Hitler jailed Rothschild, Hitler raised Germany from poverty to a job creating country by kicking the usury handlers out, and did only take back German speaking land stolen in the Versailles Treaty”.
The story is difficult to people busy with their jobs and family. It easy to jump on the wrong hole when you finally realise the story about official Hitler is wrong.
In the present situation where Europe tries to explain its luxory living as vassals on US Quantitative Easing, and their denial of own moral fallacy in welfare socialism, they seek to national socialism emotionally as a possible solution.
While this can be understandable, the development in the European Elite’s hypnosis toward rasing military budgets and visions is absolutely frightening.
May Putin continue to lead the whole way to the end.