Dear friends,
I have finally found a few minutes in this totally hectic time to give you a short update about the future of this blog.
1) Thanks to the most generous help of a donor (‘A’) and the help of some very skilled IT specialists a dedicated server has been selected in Iceland to host this blog.
2) The migration will probably begin in mid-August and it will take some time to iron out the various technical kinks.
3) Two good friends have agreed to become “pre-moderators“. What this means is the following: Every day I get 100-150 comments posted. About 80% of them are ok. About 15% are so-so. 5% are terrible. This is the general outline of the plan (to be amended and refined): The task of the two pre-moderators would be to only pick out the obviously good ones and allow them through. And I would have to deal with the remaining ones. In other words, they would act like a policemen, “detaining” “suspects” and I would have the final say on their future, just like a “judge”. For me, that would mean a massive reduction in the sheer number of comments to read because I would not have to deal with a majority of “innocents” and only have to focus on the “suspects”. Also, this way no post would be rejected unless a) it is flagged by the pre-moderators and b) rejected by me. I will also introduce an official comments/moderation policy (which I will outline in a few weeks). Finally, no comment will ever be rejected automatically and anonymous comments will remain allowed.
4) There is a very real possibility that the blog will soon become available in one more European language (but I don’t want to make that official until they are ready).
5) If all goes well, a new weekly SITREP focused on the Boko Haram movement in Nigeria will be published here soon.
6) I have officially ditched Flattr for donations as in the past few months donation through it have not even added to 10 dollars (which is the minimum).
7) Instead, I have now posted the instructions on how to make a donation through the Amazon.com giftcard program: it can be done from anywhere in the world, and the donation arrives in the form of a emailed code (see box on the left side of the page).
8) I am still so insanely swamped that I have not have the time or possibility to personally thank the following people for their donations via PayPal: SF, NE, DS, RM, MB, ND, BG, MM, WM and, of course, HJ without whose weekly help we would simply not be able to make it right now. To all of you, my sincere apologies for not being able to thank you in person and my heartfelt thanks for helping me and my family make ends meet.
One the blog moves to the new server and my future pre-moderators begin by helping me, I hope to have a little more time to do research and write analytical reports. Right now, my lifestyle is truly crazy-hectic and I dream of a 36 hour day to get it all done.
Question: I am looking for one or two people with a good working experience of the WordPress blog publishing platform (under GNU/Linux) who would be willing to help with the daily tasks of webmastering the blog once it moves to its dedicated server. If you have such skill and want to help me, please send me an email at vineyardsaker@gmail.com or vineyardsaker@mail.ru (though the latter seems to be regularly blocked by western ISP and email services).
I wish you all a super-wonderful week end, kind regards,
The Saker
Saker Message:
@EVERYBODY: I just got a question which was unfortunately written ALL IN CAPS which I do not allow here, but the question was about how one could get to the new blog after the migraton.
No worries, this blog will remain online “frozen” with a large and clear post indicating that it has moved to a new location.
One of the domain names will be:
TheSaker.net
There will also be other ones do be announced at a later date.
Everybody will be given the time needed to make the transition, I promise!
Kind regards,
The Saker
Saker, what you’re doing is right! Victory is emminent! God bless! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=em0gwJZTgHY
Great news Saker. Thanks for your work and thanks to all the contributors.
Peace
URGENT: I was horrified to read the following in the post of July 1 (‘You guys are wonderful – thanks so much!!’):
“Today I went to my PO BOX and found not one, but 6 letters, and even a (much needed) bottle of vitamins. ”
Please DO NOT take the vitamins unless you have VERIFIED they are from a known, trusted associate. You MUST have spoken to them to verify this. Email or a letter is NOT enough.
I KNOW ABOUT THESE THINGS. ‘They’ WILL and DO use tainted food and medicines to remove or incapacitate threats. They do NOT need to do anything as dramatic as kill you – at least, not in a sudden and obvious manner.
‘They’ can make you very ill gradually, so that you can’t work. They can give you a nasty virus or bacterium that slows you down, but is hard for your doctor to identify. They can give you viral cancer – or poison you with Pollonium. It will look like a middle aged man succumbing to the kind of unfortunate illness a middle aged man often gets.
‘They’ are PROVEN to do this. They are KNOWN to target individuals by intercepting delivered groceries; sending ‘kind’ anonymous gifts of food or drink; and even leaving cylinders of toxic substances in your mains water pipes. It is VERY easy to create ‘doped’ tablets like vitamins. You would have ZERO idea from the taste that they were tainted.
One of ‘their’ favorite tricks is to learn if you have a rgular restautant you visit, in which case they fineagle Officers into your local diner (often, they make a regular waitres ill by ‘food poisoning’, so a temp has to be hired) then they add something toxic to your meal. It’s a way to target you with precision, and not cause harm to others. (Food poisoning in multiple people invites suspiscious questions and medical enquiries.)
I posted this on your blog because your Gmail WILL be monitored, and is PROBABLY censored in some way. (You think EVERY email reaches you? Unlikely. Google works for ‘them’.)
I had to use that darn ‘them’ euphemism to avoid triggering word scanning programmes that might delete this comment without you seeing it.
Sorry for the use of caps in places: I really needed you to notice this!
Do not discard the truly bad ones: Publish them, from time to time, with your comment why you consider them below ‘confidence level’. Such comments frequently spark great discussions.
Regards, Spiral
Saker,
In the past, you suggested that communication with you should be via blog comments (when appropriate). If you will no longer be reading all comments, how should it be done?
I’m sure Saker will read all the comments, Writer. But it’s good to have the pre-moderation to allow comments to be approved on a timely basis or he’ll have to spend all day just doing the comments page, and I’d rather he be freed to write his articles, which is a job in itself!
@Writer: If you will no longer be reading all comments, how should it be done?
Very good point! Thank you. I will read the comments, but in a different way. Instead of looking for some sneaky trolling, I will look for contents in terms of interest. Trust me, I will also change the rules for commenting with stricter requirements such as 1) pertinence 2) impeccable courtesy to all and a total ban on both Nazi and Zionist propaganda (when appropriate, of course, an intelligent and informed discussion of these topics, will be not only allowed, but encouraged). Finally, comments will have to be at least one well-written paragraph long. Stuff like “hell yeah!” or “that is stupid” will probably have to be banned. So just “venting post” will be out. I want to dramatically raise the quality of comments and make the blog more readable. These are the plans, but I need to refine them with my two pre-moderators. So, stay tuned and thanks for the important warning.
Cheers,
The Saker
There are many who will never forgive their governments and their countries for doing what they are doing, this is the worst catastrophe in the history of the West, and weak, neoliberal, capitalist, fascist pigs have brought it on themselves and the ‘Ukrainian’ and Russian people.
The Russian Federation knows how long it will take to resolve the situation, obviously many decades, and is going to do whatever it takes not only to defend Russia but to defend Ukraine, such as it is. I believe they will pursue their policy no matter what.
On the other hand, the blowback from this war is already being felt around the world in so many ways, and the US and the EU have signed their own death warrants, in effect.
I for one look forward to the destruction of the United States of America.
Saker, you know that I’m bankrupt and that the person from Holland who wanted to give me the 200$ for opensxce changed his mind when I told him about the truth. Therefore I cannot send you the 200$ at this time. However, after reading all your wonderful work I decided I want to send you at least the symbolic about of 18 EUR (18 is better than 20, because it brings MUCH LUCK!). p.s. I said EUR, because although USD and EUR are both extremely evil currencies, the EUR is maybe a bit less bloody. We should not use USD for _anything_. As we saw from the BNP punishment: Each and every transaction around the universe that is being performed in USD, falls under US jurisdiction! Also we don’t want the strengthen this evil USD, not even by infinite 0.0000…1 %. Now to my hint and my question: Your Paypal Donation button is in fact nothing of that sort. Although it looks like one because you used https://www.paypalobjects.com/en_US/i/btn/btn_donateCC_LG.gif for it. It simply directs a clicker to the general paypal login page, nothing more: https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr
At that point many users – even if they decided to donate – may lose patience and give up. For example, which email address is the right one for your paypal account? vineyardsaker__AxT__gmail _DoT_ com or vineyardsaker _AxT_ mail _DoT_ ru or another one?
At this point somebody may switch on his TV and forget the donation …
I point this out because I don’t know that you can create a specific dedicated DONATE_ME link in your Paypal settings.
For example test this with OpenSXCE’s DonationLink (No, do not donate, just test what I mean) : https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=4HP83V5M8QDWQ
Then another example, somehow it is furthermore possible to modify such URL’s in your Paypal account, that those who want to help you can sign a donation_subscription with you. For example if somebody has no income like myself (software developer and all that, but germany is not a rich country for all, only for some), then the person (such as myself) would be much more capable of sending you 18 EUR per month, rather than a big amount instantly. To provide you an example how this would look like, see here (Paypal donalion links at the bottom, also the instant type of Donation link at the top of the page) : http://kenrockwell.com/
Your blog: Sometimes (every 2 or 3 months) I’m a week abroad. But for the rest of the time I would be glad to help Novorossiya – at least in this non-military way.
rgds. from Soviet East-Berlin,
%martin
Take heart people! Strelkov made the NY Times and now Motorola’s wedding has a picture spread in the Daily Mail:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2689025/Leader-pro-Russian-separatists-platoon-weds-girlfriend-Donetsk.html
Ok, you’re probably already in night-break. I took your gmail address.
The day before Yesterday somebody from Spain mentioned, that on his localized version of RIA-Novosti are interesting stories, for whome there is no English translation on http://en.ria.ru/
It responded, that I frequently see similar things with the german localized version.
Here for example, which sounds extremely _damn_ _important_ if true:
Poroshenko went gagaga: (Crimea: Proshenko prepares attack on Crimea, Russia!)
Krim: Poroschenko bereitet Militäreinsatz vor: http://de.ria.ru/zeitungen/20140711/268980402.html
Dear Saker
Sorry for posting this here
Could you look at this Anglo-Saxon propaganda
BBC
Negative views of Russia and Putin on the rise globally
It seems
Anglo-Saxon propaganda has created or invented some kind of machine with witch they can measure unmeasurable.
Of cause BBC does not say what methods were used and if other people did the same that would arrive to different results.
Maybe they measured hatred in Anglo-Saxon media towards Russia which is united in criminal activity against Russia.
Spaniard
…One of ‘their’ favorite tricks is to learn if you have a rgular restautant you visit….
——————————-
hahahaaa..we know “they” the American government, the land of free…..
The following interview given by journalist Mark Franchetti gives a candid report on the true cause of the rebel fighters, that proves unsettling to the Ukraine talk show .
Saker, you should consider running this in the blog post.
It happened twice today: when I click this link on my favourite, the warning appears: Malicious site blocked!
You’re surely doing a heck of a good job, Dear Saker!
There are European Union Politicians who consider Crimea to be Russian Territory, and it could that they have different reason for thinking that.
If we look at History, then we will know that NATO was created during the Berlin Blockade and the Berlin Airlift.
As we know, the Soviet Union no longer exists, and there might be Historians who are wondering that if the USSR had given all of East Germany to the West before the end of 1945.
Perhaps the Soviet Union may may been in existence today, or perhaps NATO may not have existed, but German Reunification had to happen as quickly as possible before the end of 1945 for that.
We know that there were agreements with the Yalta Agreement, but the USSR could have come up something like that it could not financially afford it, or that it does not believe it splitting up Countries of the same Ethnicity, or any other plausible reason for those times.
Perhaps there are People who think that if there is an Airlift for Civilian Supplies in Crimea, then this might result in Less NATO, because the Airlift in Berlin resulted in more NATO, and that this is the real reason for their positions.
This could be because they may suspect that had All of East Germany been given to the West before the end of 1945, then there would be Less NATO in Europe, and Less America in Europe, but that the longer the USSR held onto East Germany, then it would be more NATO in Europe, and More America in Europe.
It will be for others to access whether Nazi America is up to its Nazi habits again of Ethnic Cleaning in Ukraine, even as they did this against the Serbs in the Balkans.
This is because Nazis will Much Prefer to live in a Wasteland rather than with another Race, but we know that Crimea has an oversupply of the Latest Modern Weapons.
I do not know how this will affect the Industrial Base of Eastern Ukraine, but we know that Industries moved to the East of the soviet Union during WW 2, and at a Proper Time, the Soviet Army launched a Military Offensive against the Nazis.
It is not beyond the Capability of America and its Puppet in in Kiev to utter Lie upon Lie, and People who were in Nazi Occupied part of the Soviet Union had to rely on Mainly Farming to sustain themselves, as the Industries went to the East of the Soviet Union.
There are Western News Articles on what is going on in Ukraine at the Telegraph Website with comments from readers, where I wrote a few comments using the moniker of Moniker at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/10933013/The-smuggling-foreign-minister-of-the-Donetsk-Peoples-Republic.html#disqus_thread , and at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/defence/10930769/Lessons-of-war.html .
Saker found something interesting https://slavyangrad.wordpress.com/2014/07/12/statement-by-evegeniy-muraev-june-17-2014/
Looks like there’s person in Kiev who’s kept his humanity.
If the comments are approved out of order, won’t it be hard to follow the thread? When you refresh to read new comments, most people would start from the previous end, not start at the beginning. The comment date stamp appears to be when the comment was made, not approved.
I can’t help with day to day running of the site, or have the bandwidth to support an online backup site. I may however be able to make an archive copy of the current blog prior to transfer to the new platform. This is of course subject to your express wish and permission to do so. Maybe the new host can handle that anyway.
I like the idea of the hierarchical moderation scheme. One extra advantage is that doubtful posts will be delayed via double moderation which may act as a deterrent to the more sophisticated propagandists.
Dear Saker,
First, I would like to tell you how grateful I am for your blog, which attempts by all means available to shed some light on the current Ukrainian situation, which is otherwise either completely ignored, or worse, totally distorted by the Western MSM. So a great big Thank You is in order.
However, I have to express some sincere doubts and some disappointment when you announce that you will now have a Sitrep on Boko Haram. No doubt Africa is an interesting continent, but it does not weigh much on the World scene. What I believe would be much more useful is more coverage of the economic and political landscape in Russia itself, as Russia now stands at the forefront of the struggle against the Globalist Agenda and the Americanist System. We all agree that what is going on in the Ukraine has very little to do with the Ukraine itself and instead represents a direct attack by the axis of evil on Russia, which is an obstacle to the hegemonic agenda of the neocon cabal which pulls the strings in Washington.
I would love to know more about what is going on in this huge country, and about the internal dynamics being shaped or reshaped by the US induced chaos on its Western border.
For example, you introduced your readers to a personality named Nikolai Starikov. I was able to get a pile of his books here in Irkutsk, and he must obviously be a very popular as well as prolific author, as the shelves of the bookstore were abundantly stocked with his works.
I believe that he is also the leader of a party called “Партия Великое Отечество”.
This evening, as my wife and I were walking back home from the grocery store a convoy of eight or ten cars sporting and displaying the banners of the party Velikoe Otechestvo went down Karl Marx Street honking enthusiastically and calling the attention of the passerbys to the colorful and noisy rally.
My question is, and perhaps you are not in a position to answer it, what kind of influence does Nikolai Starikov possess on the national scene and what are his future prospects? Well, these are the sorts of topics which I would like to see developed if there was such an opportunity in the future, although for now of course Ukraine is the subject on which we are all primarily focused.
All the best, American Russophile
An excellent essay by John Pilger on the western media’s deliberate ignorance of U.S. aggression and war crimes:
On Israel, Ukraine and Truth » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names
Thanks for the link to John Pilger’s article, Gareth.
I have a lot of respect for Pilger. He has devoted his life to portraying war and oppression all over the globe and he has done a monumental job of it.
But there are restrictions on what Pilger can write. I believe he stretches those limits to their maximum. But, of course, there are things he cannot say and still be published. We need to be aware of those limits when we read his work.
Those limits include, most especially, the joining of the dots and drawing of conclusions. There is a familiar pattern in his article and he even draws attention to in it others interviews and articles that he writes about in his own article. It is what is not mentioned that is of supreme importance.
John Pilger’s article is basically a list of interesting and telling quotes and also a list of atrocities of varying sorts which are factual. But what he cannot do is join the dots and link together the atrocities using logic to display not only a pattern but a reason for it all. Also missing is the meaning of it for our world today and for the future. There is nothing actionable, in other words.
If Pilger was to provide these missing elements, he would not be published, of course. He is relying on the readers to put the facts together and draw meaning and direction from it all. Unfortunately, today’s public has not been trained in how to do that so it is largely a waste.
The media moguls are happy enough to publish works such as this because they know better than anyone that the public is largely incapable of using the facts outlined in articles such as this one. Indeed, you will notice this same pattern of a litany of true facts presented without the connecting logic and the meaningful rhetoric being present in much of what is called the Alternative and Left Press including, of course, CounterPunch.
So if you read it again, notice the list of facts but also notice the absence of logic and the absence of pattern and meaning. This is arguably better than the conservative press which focuses on the other end of it. You get the rhetoric (meaning and prediction) but without the facts and the logic to make it meaningful, never mind truthful.
In either case, we are not getting the full enchilada. We are not getting truth that is useful.
My fervent hope is that a producer at RT or perhaps VoR will offer John Pilger a contract(s) which will enable him to present the whole story to us; to join the facts up into patterns and to draw meaning from them and point to a different behaviour that’s needed that will lead to a different world.
Saker and your New Website Team:
Please consider this for Comments.
http://wpcodereminder.wordpress.com/2013/04/03/ultimate-wordpress-comments-guide/
It is easy to Comment, Reply and Read. And links are automatic for urls.
It has plenty of plugins for control and various uses.
Duplicate post eraser will be very useful.
I share the view that others have expressed here before: Russia should not put too much hope on Germany to ease the tensions. German MSM and public opinion stands, as I see it, largely united behind the Kiev junta. This recent event with the expelled US spy looks to me like a classical “limited hangout operation”, which doesn’t change anything, while it gives the German population the much-needed reassurance (or one could also say illusion) that Germany is not the US’ poodle.
Putin’s current Latin America tour could be much more important for long-term strategic alliances with the prospect of a multipolar world than the seemingly useless phone conversations with Merkel. As far as Europe is concerned, France might be a better partner for negotiations. A large part of the French society has little sympathy for the US and the EU (let alone for the UK), and seems to feel closer to Russia than many other peoples in Western Europe. In contrast, russophobic opinions are wide-spread among German politicians, regardless of what common sense, recent history, and economic aspects could suggest.
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“””””Anonymous has left a new comment on the post “Blog news: migration, moderation, new incarnations…”:
I share the view that others have expressed here before: Russia should not put too much hope on Germany to ease the tensions. German MSM and public opinion stands, as I see it, largely united behind the Kiev junta. This recent event with the expelled US spy looks to me like a classical “limited hangout operation”, which doesn’t change anything, while it gives the German population the much-needed reassurance (or one could also say illusion) that Germany is not the US’ poodle.”””””
I from East-Berlin can sign this 100%! It is absolutely pointless to expect anything from any current or future german government. They act exclusively in the interest of the USA/EU and NATO, against the will of an increasing number of citizens. As I had written a few weeks ago, a rising number of german citizens starts to realize this and very much admires Putin and loves Russia! But forget pigs like Merkel, Steinmeier and all the block-parties (CDU/CSU/Gruene/SPD/FDPPirates). The only ones that constitute a marginal amount of hope would be the Leftist party and maybe to a smaller extent the Euro-critics AFD (AltyernativeForGermany).
The western press censorship here is probably at the same level or worse, than in North-Korea. They even dare to ridicule their own former readers who dare to speak up against the one and only equalized “official public USA/NATO-line”. Such as here: Tagesspiegel an Ex-Leserin: “Sie sind ein bedauernswertes Opfer der russischen Propaganda” (Daily Mirror to ex-reader: “You are a deplorable victim of the Russian propaganda” ) http://meedia.de/2014/07/11/tagesspiegel-an-ex-leserin-sie-sind-ein-bedauernswertes-opfer-der-russischen-propaganda/
Each and every critical comment instantly gets DELETED.
For example, yesterday I posted 50 copies of these terrible pictures of the civilian victims of Lugansk into their Facebook forum https://de-de.facebook.com/tagesspiegel , all of which got deleted after a few minutes:
https://pp.vk.me/c614627/v614627232/15834/VK4GFEzh-GM.jpg
https://vk.com/album-69838054_198072706
We can count on _many_ (but _not_ all)normal german civilians. At least 10% are hardcore-ProRussia. Plus about 20% or so soft-supporters (that are on the proper way, but not yet informed enough).
All this especially in East-Germany.
On the other hand there is a dramatic increase of symphathizers with right-wing propaganda and even Hitler. Especially in the lost generation, the youth is in big numbers unemployed. It differs from reagion to region. In general the south/west is rich and industrialized, while the north and east are poor. Then there is an increasing disappointment concerning the damn EU-propaganda, which is present everywhere in all official press or education organs. As germany has no real communist youth movements anymore, most of this potential flows into Nazi-symphathizers. Especially since the Russia-friendly LeftParty (“Die Linke”) makes the severe mistake, not to disance itself from the EU. It is fair to say that the political views in germany are split due to the following criteria:
A) Region
B) Age
C) Education.
Where do we have the most friends and supporters:
A) East
B) midlle-aged or older
C) Academics
It is a complicated topic.
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It is a complicated topic.
But forget any german leaders!
They are willingful US puppets, no more.
Almost without exception. It is hopeless :(
Media: The equalized nature of the western MSM has meanwhile lead to a successfull shift to althernative media.
http://info.kopp-verlag.de/index.html
http://info.kopp-verlag.de/hintergruende/deutschland/redaktion/aktuelle-weltnachrichten-vom-juli-2-14.html
https://www.compact-online.de/
FORGET MERKEL!
September 2013 edition showed a Photoshop’ed photo-montage of Merkel in USA uniform:
https://www.compact-online.de/compact-september-2013/
Then there are some good blog sites, and their number is rising:
http://hinter-der-fichte.blogspot.de/
http://alles-schallundrauch.blogspot.de/
As I said, literally MILLIONS of germans, *love* Russia and see Putin in line with JFK, but better.
If there is ever a big war, count on these germans! The only problem so far is lack of any orgazized structures.
Everything that tries to start up gets devastating press and instantly gets discredited by the MSM who turn around facts that much, that they meanwhile hide the existence of any Nazis in Ukraine, while they call Putin an insane dictator like Hitler, and while they brand-mark any supporters of peace and Russia “Nazis”. It is that much turned upside-down and downside-up, I wouldn’t believe it myself, if I didn’t get it hammered on me every minute.
I for myself can no longer deal with this.
Therefore I see my own future only in Russia and no-where else.
THANK YOU for your courage against Western Imperialism!! :)
Many Germans have a liking of Russia but the Ukraine issue is one of the dark fact for them. Recently Putins America visit may bring a successful avail.