Dear moderators,
Of course, I could drop by and try to get in touch with some of you though our usual space at unseen, but I wanted to reach you *all* and I wanted to say what I had to say to you in public.
First, THANKS SO MUCH for the phenomenal job you are doing. I really mean that. Every day or so I go and check the trashbin and I wonder and all the work you have to put into making hard judgement calls. Today, for instance, one of you did move to the trash a post because even though prima facie it did not violate any of the basic rules, the sources used by the post clearly showed where this was all coming from. And you did the right thing to trash it! Rule are, of course, guidelines you cannot replace common sense, and you guys are using a lot of common, and even less common, sense and doing a fantastic job. Also, you do put up with a lot of ugly shit, pardon my French, and not to mention some plain stupid comments. So, again, THANK YOU for what you are doing.
Second, I want to apologize to all of you for how little I interact with you. Frankly, I am completely overwhelmed with work and I suffer from a nasty case of chronic fatigue on top of that. Two jobs and chronic fatigue are, I assure you, a nasty combo. So what I do is I work as a fire brigade: I go where it burns. A crisis here, another one there, something goes south on blog X, or somebody simply disappears. You have no idea how much of that stuff I have to deal with. And so you, the moderators, are paying the price for *not* having a massive crisis of some kind, which is really unfair. I interact with you the least because you are the most reliable members of our community. But I can also sincerely tell you that for all 10’000 times when I did not have to deal with some kind of crisis I also had 10’000 grateful thoughts for all you do. Frankly, without you guys I would either burn out, or end up in a loony bin or both :-)
So, dear mods, forgive me for being so out of touch and thank you for all you are doing
Cheers and hugs,
The Saker
+100 to everyone of you!!!
I know, that’s not much. You all deserve MORE.
*****THANK YOU*****
p.s. be careful!
Those who joined the freedom fighters on the ground, if they ever dare to travel back to Germany or Spain, may simply get arrested for “terrorism”. Just heard that today in a video where a Russian who lived some years in Germany is warning us (he’s now in Donetsk protecting the city against UAF and RS aka true-terrorism). He said, that when he last visited Germany in November the german security services visited his girlfriend and his mother (they also live in Germany) 1 week after he went back to continue fighting is DNR.
If things continue like that, you(/we) infowar warriors may one day be the next ones who get arrested or who disappear or have accidents.
Only look at some odd cases related to 911.
We certainly are already on certain black-lists.
YOU are the real heroes investing all your spare time into many hours of unpaid work day after day, the ones who should get the Nobel peace prize
Long Live The Resistance
Yeah, no kidding, i got buzzed by a Globemaster a couple weeks ago. It veered way off its normal flight path and wasted aviation fuel just to blow the tops off my Black-Eyed Susans. Went straight over my head. I am not kidding. This really happened. Time to shut the hell up. That should make all those “anonymous” haters on this blog out there really happy; hope you’re happy, Anonymous haters, lol! I’m shuttin’ the hell up.
Was that an attempt to scare us into stopping to oppose the Empire? If so,I’m sorry it didn’t work with me.I’m not a dilettante “revolutionary”.I consider supporting the side of justice as being the right thing to do,no matter what.
Uncle Bob.
Black-eyed Susans are a flower – a type a trailing daisy.
I think this Anonymouse was being sarcastic/defiant in the wake of Martin’s post.
Or maybe it’s just a mini-audition for a gig at the Onion.
Great analysis of my above comment, eimar, it’s really creative. But nope. I was not joking. That story is absolutely true, and I got the message loud and clear. It was really really loud!
Haha,I know the flower,thank you.But I’m not sure about the other.Lately we’ve had a bad infestation of Empire supporters.And it sounded like he was saying “maybe we should be scared and shut up”. I could of been wrong of course,I hope so.
Uncle Bob, you’re my hero. You are doing a great job fighting the good fight. But, man, I tell you, I thought that damn big military plane was going to land right on top of me! Damn you, USAF, you really jacked up my garden. i’m surrounded by air force bases, but they never do this sh*t. Ever. I totally got Jade Helm’d. It’s easy to talk big until they do it to you. My ears are still ringing.
Thank you,but,no,my friend we aren’t the heroes.The heroes are the Vanya’s,Motorola’s, Givi’s,and the “vacationers” .And the guys like Russel,and Graham,who are actually there in Donbass.Fighting and sometimes being killed for what’s right.The extend of our heroism is in fighting the information war.And while that is very important in it’s own right.It in no way makes me a hero.I’m just proud to be on the side of the real heroes in this war.
Here are the “real” heroes of our times.Singing a great old song in their off minutes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=14&v=vnlvnXKWhqs
No, I said: Be careful folks.
But not sure what the poster after me wants. Either I he is on drugs or has a sense of humour which I don’t understand or he is a troll.
Also, as you see, I myself continue using even my real name (on fb and twitter, as x-linked earlier).
True, no matter what.
the answer to your question is no
Anonymous: Ok, sorry. I didn’t understand some word in your message and it looked a bit odd. Wasn’t sure if that’s trolling. My fault.
FYI: Last year I was myself part of the translation team for a short time. And it is simply too much work for me, I’m too slow in translating and typing these texts. I feel bad about it, but at the moment I cannot do this (can barely pay my bills etc., Berlin is dirt-shit, I hate it)
Also: The video that I mentioned, I would like to reference it, but I meanwhile have so many facebook, twitter and youtube subscriptions, that I don’t remember if I saw it on one of those or somewhere on https://voicedonbass.wordpress.com/
re: moderators. Yes, not every post adds to the discussion so it is all good. Don’t know where to post this but it is from Russia Insider and by a Russian philosopher about something called the 4th Political Theory. i think it is relevant to the higher tone of this blog.
http://russia-insider.com/en/society/russias-sanctioned-conservative-philosopher-calls-crusade-against-liberalism-and-globalism
He says, ” the future of Russia depends..on efforts at working out a 4th Political Theory.”
I got about half way through the article before giving up trying to resolve all the high-order complex abstractions and contradictions. As far as communism, I think it would be a good idea to try it on a large scale. Liberalism? It’s pretty much a meaningless word now. Fascism? Same old nobles vs peasants with a side order of greedy corporatism.
I don’t think this is nearly that complicated, and this seems to me to be largely mystification, perhaps obscurantism. Maybe y=the golden (or platinum) rule is better.
Yes I know how you feel.I think on our side we sometimes “overthink” things.What we need to think about is what’s right and wrong.One of the reason’s we have trouble with getting people to side with us is because the “technical” explanations are difficult for most citizens to fully grasp.Its not an accident that successful “advertising/propaganda” is by headlines and soundbites.It would be nice (and we should work on it in the future) if our educational systems did a better job of teaching the young to understand complicated issues.But we can’t change that in the middle of a war.Right now we need to break these issues down to the basic points,”fascists bad,Donbass people good”,unipolar World “bad”,multi-polar World “good”,Nato wars “bad”,Russia’s self-defense “good”.And then give easy to understand reasons for our beliefs.Anything that can’t be understood with the minimum of research is worthless at this point.
He lost me in the first paragraph.
“in the 20th century politics redeployed into a strictly ideological region,”
What does he mean ‘strictly ideological region’? That religion and aristocracy no longer exist? Is ‘region’ like political space?
“All the political ideologies, having reached the peak of their dissemination and influence in the 20th century, were the outcome of “the new time” [i.e. the Modern Era]; and embodied, although differently and by different signs, the soul of Modernity. Today we are freeing ourselves from this epoch in leaps and bounds.”
It’s only 2015 — not a lot of time to say we are freeing ourselves — when ideologies still rage. Neoliberalism may be reaching it’s peak only now, and in the last few years. What is the ‘soul of modernity”? Does he mean modern as post enlightenment? scientific revolution? 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th century? (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernity ) Pre post modern? Individuality? These terms are as slippery as eels, and yet he seems to be using them in some preconfigured technical sense as if they were well defined.
Then “Fascism, having disappeared, freed up space for a battle of the first political theory with the second [communism].”
But fascism has hardly disappeared, and communism is many centuries old, and is still relevant.
“If the Third Political Theory criticized capitalism from the right, and the Second from the left, then in the new stage this old political topography no longer exists: in relation to post-liberalism it is impossible to determine where the left is and where the right. There are only two positions: agreement (centre) and disagreement (periphery). Both one and the other are global.”
The first sentence makes some sense to me, and the second makes sense, but also points out the essential meaningless of these terms now — and even his “Liberalism (right and left)” is murky (maybe referring to the contradictory two threads regarding social individualism and rights coupled with corporate mercantilism and imperialism?).
As for the third sentence, I submit there are many more than two positions, and agreement and centralism are not necessarily the same, even accounting for political orthodoxy by plutocracy. Is not anarchy, and even liberalism to an extent, a central agreement to disagree? Whereas communism can be a peripheral agreement to agree, with a devolved authoritarian state, and operating by consensus?
I can’t figure out what the guy is really talking about? Is it a bad translation? It reminds of reading some math books or other technical subject, where the symbols and words are incomprehensible without reading a specified set of previous material — but not other material on the same subject which uses a different set of symbols and words — almost cult-like ‘mysticism’.
He says “It is difficult to say how the process of working out this theory will unfold. Only one thing is obvious: this cannot be an individual matter or the undertaking of a limited circle of people. It must be a universal, collective effort.”
Right — so it doesn’t exist now, and depends on the common man becoming uncommon by becoming immersed in a particular flavor of highly abstract and arbitrary terminology and concept to develop an post ideological ideology which is defined as being an undefined ‘something else’ which no one now understands?
Oy vey!!
@blue. Good points you make. ..well, we have Russian ideologues talking about Kiev regime as an anti Russia and the Novorussian resistance as an anti anti Russia so you kind of have to go with the essence of what is being said. To demand clarification is not being a troll as some are so quick to do at times on this site. or to be polemical or even to be challenging of the general “line”. Sometimes it is just a matter of style and that can lead to misunderstandings.
I’ve been grappling with these sorts of issues for a while and have run headlong into issues of semiotics, some basic philosophy of ontology, epistemology (and a bit of theology), scientific paradigms, a little math, political science, of course, a few other areas, and cybernetics — the latter seeming to me to be a synthesis of the rest.
Rather than ideology. politics, and philosophy, cybernetics is almost a ‘zen’ with the suchness of systems in how they actually work — what a system (any system) is, how it might be controlled, and how it works and canbe analyzed — and it can be difficult to grasp (and I have much to do yet) but the material understandable, and applicable to all sorts of things, including geopolitics and political economics.
It can be helpful in approaching ‘liberalism’ for instance, which now seems to me to be based on a simple idea: meritocracy — that individuals can, with personal liberty, by their own abilities and efforts, raise themselves and lord it over other, lesser, people, rather than doing so through some hierarchical inheritance such as in monarchy. The rub, of course, is how merit is defined. What is the purpose of the system, how is error and error correction seen, what are the feedback loops? In capitalism — the historical outgrowth of liberalism, the purpose is to accumulate wealth, and ‘order society’ according to the judgements of those most ‘successful’ — the oligarchy. We then have a ‘machine’ — political and otherwise — which is effective at meeting the goals of the system, even while the goals may be perverted from humanitarian values.
In second order cybernetics, the system is monitored to see that all the parts work together towards the systemic purpose — and we have academics, analysts and think tanks doing that. In thrd order cybernetics the issue of subjectivity is introduced: that the participant in the system, the subjective observer, is part of the active part of the system, a player, a feedback loop, and affects the outcome (rhymes with post modern relativity, and bubbles, and the Washington consensus).
So perhaps the ‘forth political system’ rhymes with forth order cybernetics? But cybernetics is methodical (systematic…?), and there is a principle — I don’t recall the term — picked up form scientific paradigm thinking, that a new paradigm is compatible with the old, such as relativity not breaking Newtonian physics in most cases, or all the good data from the alchemists not being invalidated by molecular chemistry.
Dugin’s idea of the end of the first three political systems don’t work with this thinking — they are not refuted, but seen as special cases of more general theory, and the lessons learned from them are not discarded or forgotten, but incorporated. Yes there is some advantage and validity to liberal thinking, and communist thinking and even the hierarchy of fascism (and BTW, relational, table-driven, databases do use temporary hierarchical indexing, and anarchistic organizations do have temporary managers and specialists, which are, however, accountable to the collective).
One thing that is overlooked in use of computer and information science is the immense amount we have learned, in a relatively non-political, non-ideological, and non-dogmatic environment — but which is applicable to politics, religion, economics, philosophy, etc. This is the sort of abstraction which is practical (like math and logic is), and far advanced over the paradigms of past centuries or millenia — and might be assumed to be superior, even. (And with this stuff maybe even political systems might be emulated on a computer to see how well they work without killing off a million people and destroying the infrastructure of a country.)
We have so many names for the same nonsense today. Neoliberalism, fascism, conservatism, communism, capitalism, neo-colonialism, etc. So many ism’s all to confuse.
We need democracies whose people’s deputies are not only lawyers and bankers but engineers and teachers and from other technical fields giving them practical experience with real issues.
We need a banking system owned by the people whose purpose is to facilitate economic production and social development.
99% Compulsory Marginal tax rates for anyone in finance earning 5mil and above a year. No one should ever make such kind of money parasitising on the rest of society and then keep it.
The three points of the PirateConfederationOfRastas lol
@ teranam13,
Interesting read. Thank you. I didn’t agree with everything brought forward in the article, but most certainly agreed with this, quote;
“It is clear that Russia has to go another way. It’s own way. But just here there is a question. To diverge from the logic of post-modernity in one “separately taken country” cannot easily succeed.”
This whimsical oddity of a post causes me to reflect upon the work you have done, and to commend you. The best way I cab truly do that is suggest your blog at the annals. But I did that already quite some time ago.
I feel a certain kinship, and I truly appreciate you Saker.
My Deepest Regards,
-R
To Saker , Translators and Moderators: BRICS greetings:
Spasibo, Xiexie, Obrigado, Dhan’yavāda, Siyabonga
Hvala from Spiral
A nice video about spending a weekend in a Russian banya:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?t=1059&v=WhYEUf1j61g
cute video of Dacha…very informative…did you ever read about Putin’s adventure in his Dacha ? It caught on fire and he had to leave out the second storey window with…no clothes on…he had been in the sauna….and many people – neighbors – were watching his descent from the 2nd storey, wrapped in his bed sheet…
Anyway, this guy is good for Russian knowledge in America … I saw him at Ufa too…
Well said Saker!!
Had I the means to I would be thrilled to join them, but my connection just isn’t reliable.
Yes, their judgement calls are pretty high-calibre: the kind of trolling this site attracts is often pretty sophisticated. Add the international aspect (and the linguistic demands it makes) and you can see why moderation here needs, as you say, not just common, but uncommon sense.
They are also fantastic at providing context/sources for comments.
But where has Kat Kan gone?
dearest Eimar…she’ll be back….
Thumbs up :)
Right Sector discord and threats and actions are aimed at giving Poroshenko the trigger to invite the 1000’s of soldiers about to NATO drill the ukraine to stay….moderators
A tip of the hat to the mods on this blog, they do an outstanding job, best I’ve seen anywhere.
USEU government intimidation of those who are in disagreement is extant and increasing. Case in point, my last trip to US, last year. My welcome by TSA was interesting and included information that confirms they know a bit of my/our activities, not that we have been secretive for anything.
My departure was even more interesting. Suffice it to say that after the questions were answered and I was passed on through, I stopped within eyesight of them and ostentatiously put on my St. George Ribbon, making very sure the workers saw it. I know very well the cameras caught that moment.
I have to go back again this late fall. If I’m not in prison I will report that journey here.
Auslander !! would you be in prison for putting on the ribbon ? Seriously ???
Well, if so…your wife would tell you not to do such foolhardy things buddy…..!~~!
Ann, I did a little bit more than just put on the St. George within sight of the border boys, that was simply my way of smiling to them after I walked out of their area.
eimar, thank you for the promotion! That’s two promotions I’ve gotten in three months, one just as important as the other. My wife and I are a team but we do try to be reasonably careful, we have 9 ‘children’ who depend on us for everything and we understand that fact completely.
Aside from the children I have a lot of writing to do yet, not only here on blog but another book will start this fall.
Auslander, I hereby declare you the Duke of Defiance (probably my favourite characteristic :)!
Just don’t overdo it – your family (and others) need you.
Blessed are the moderators :)
Thank you mods for all the work you do to keep the comments readable.
Uncle Bob, have you been taking lessons from BiBi?
That bomb graphic suggested he fully understood the level of comprehension in Congress – totally unipolar.
You might still be demanding too much with a bipolar approach.:)
Its important not to think people like him aren’t successful like that.We can (and do) ridicule him over that type of thing.But vast majority in any country are not in-depth news gatherers.I’m reminded of the headlines after MH17,”Putin’s Missile”.Intelligent people dismiss that as a blatant lie.But for millions in the World that “blatant lie” formed their permanent view over that tragedy. And nonetheless it works for the West.Underestimating your enemy, is “always” an error.
Uncle Bob,
“.Underestimating your enemy,
is “always” an error.”
Very true.
Overestimating people’s intelligence (ie discernment) is another..:(
Ha,ha,true.Its the other side of the same coin. The KISS system (keep, It, Simple, Stupid) is the one I try to use when discussing complicated issues with people.And examples help when people don’t understand far away areas.But can relate to comparisons happening to themselves or their family and friends.
Hello Saker. Your chronic fatigue may be caused by magnesium deficiency. Check out “the magnesium miracle by Carolyn Dean, MD., ND. Thanks for all your work and best wishes for your continued success!
THANK YOU to all the moderators and to you, Saker!
“Libre” ( “Free” ) by NIno Bravo: ( especially for the youngest, who, sometimes, feel confused….. ).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7812dngARbk
“Resistiré”( I will resist ):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZchBy1ReFic
Re: moderators .. and the struggle. Everyone does what he/she is called to do in the venue at hand. Moderators give of their time and patience to directly help Saker in his work. As for the rest of us? well we speak up, we give a few bucks, we throw in our 2 cents hopefully for the benefit of the discussion that is going on around this big biosphere that we all live in. Do I go out and discuss things at the level of a Russian philosopher ( in this case Dugin) to my Fox News watching neighbors? –obviously not. But for me, they are not unconnected.
The topic of discussion in magazines in the US lately has been automation and the future elimination of labor as we know it. Implicit in this is the fact that many people ( and the jobs they do) will be superfluous. Now, all social systems have depended on hierarchies which exploit labor ( slavery, serfdom, capitalism etc) but which needed at the same time to keep labor alive which in turn gave this labor a kind of bargaining power; No longer it seems.
This is why, as tedious as a Russian philosopher may or may not be, what Dugin says is important.
The task of moderation can never be automated nor eliminated, but it hopefully can be and remain a ‘labor of love’ yielding satisfaction rather than alienation and drudgery. This place could not survive without them.
…And don’t forget.If the enemy is getting too close to your trail,and you start to worry ‘things’ may give you away…You now have tech to help,so don’t sweat it.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3171872/The-100-jeans-prevent-knowing-broken-wind-neutralising-smell-chemical-warfare-technology.html
Ben Franklin would be proud of them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fart_Proudly
with apologies to moderator if this is not germane to any current discussion: It would be good if pictures of Russia and Russian flooded the internet ( the bear keepers of Siberia were great) and tours were encouraged so that Americans could visit and get to know the culture. I live in a mobile home park run by 80 year old first generation, Russian Orthodox couple and sometimes it is hilarious to watch the mainly white Anglo Protestants also 80 years old clash with the management of the park. What one side calls “whistle blowers ” the other considers as “snitches” and it can get ugly. Mostly what infuriates the Anglos is when they want to make an improvement which they feel is their right ( and under English common law it is) that when they ask the Russians the answer is almost automatically, “no”. Well, this ” no” really means, ” let’s negotiate and think ” about this. It may even require several calls and a wait ( god forbid a wait!) Well, the garden area needed cleaning up (major heavy rubbish, tree stumps etc) and I requested this to be done—and got “no” for an answer so I went down and started doing it myself in typical take-charge behavior. I was called into the office and scolded about how I was doing this and that etc. the rubbish was piled in the wrong place etc. etc. So, I looked the Russian lady in the eye and ,instead of quoting her the legalities of her obligations to keep up the group space or sneaking off to call the local green area regulatory commission, I said, ” Tell me what you want me to do and I will do it in order to make this place better for everyone living here.” Long pause. She did and I did and later ( much later according to Anglo timetables) a big bin was rented at management’s expense and caretakers were sent to pick up the heavy stuff. And we now have a beautiful group garden.
bear keepers of Siberia
https://youtu.be/7xKHkqLdHcs
more bear cubs !!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KycInn2uotQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AGPurCrdqc
Russian bear cubs – orphanage…
https://youtu.be/-zbR2loLeSQ
and this is the best of all..longer….very great
https://youtu.be/rQ0nDdI5eZk
I have wondered a bit as to why the commenting here was generally so clear and coherent. My original hypothesis was that Europeans are relatively more well educated and actually lived through recent history in first-person rather unlike we yanks who remain insulated. Of course the hidden hands are very busy. It must be like cleaning up New Orleans after Mardi gras, as one can see comparing this site to the relatively unrestricted responses to the Saker posts at Unz; like N.O. DURING Mardi gras. (I actually like both approaches, sometimes one can see a bit of truth through the babble, as even propaganda usually contains a bit of truth, but not everyone has enough time to sift through it).
Many Thanks!
Definitely thank you to Saker and the wonderful moderators. Yes, this site is getting better even here and there we can read the troll comments which is good ,because we know already who they are and for what they are getting paid by the taxpayers.
I’m just wondering how good they are in skimming all of these money from the government just to pay for this garbage. Almost every single independent site has the same problem even it is a NEW blog, they are everywhere immediately just to keep the lies going on.
Even in Canada there is the internal leak from the foreign ministry that every week they have to produce “legitimate” story about the terrorist actions and immediately put this into the news network. Isn’t it funny how the desperation is working…………..
Moderators give the chance to everyone who is respectful and have a sane comment.
Thank you
Saker, your chronic fatigue is very worrying. I read something lately but can’t find it now about wifi being the cause of that condition….I guess its a big sacrifice to spend alot of your life dealing with those gamma rays….