by Asia Teacher for the Saker Blog
As President Zelensky attains celebrity media status, revered by western political leaders and Hollywood’s glitterati all jostling for a photo shoot, let’s not forget the propaganda behind it and the consequences now beginning to emerge.
The western propaganda we’re currently experiencing is nothing new. Today’s President Putin joins yesterday’s Middle East “monsters” as current Ukrainian Nazi militias become “freedom fighters” and the Russians become “Nazis.” Likewise, the previous Middle Eastern terrorist groups became “moderate Islamist’s” but only if they were fighting for a US led NATO in Iraq and Syria. Yet such is the power of belief on an already stupefied majority western population that it’s become factual.
In our upside down world, reality has long vanished to 15% of our western leaders who regard themselves as the “international community.” On August 24th, only 54 countries out of 193 supported a UN resolution which condemned Russia for not stopping its intervention in the Ukraine, which begs the question of why, if the majority population loathe today’s western politicians, do they passionately and often even fanatically believe their every word?
Supplying weapons and financial aid to the Ukraine which enables Russia to get bogged down in an endless war with mounting casualties, coupled with sanctions to bring down Russian middle-class living standards is just another attempt at regime change. Moreover, having failed to control the Middle East oil producers, it has not gone unnoticed that Russia is itself a major gas and oil producer.
Bathsheba Crocker, US Ambassador to the UN warned in the New York Times on February 21st before the incursion occurred that Russia had a ‘hit list’ of people destined for arrest, detention and torture including “vulnerable populations such as religious and ethnic minorities and LGBTQI+ persons.” How she knew that is not explained, but the inclusion of homosexuals as a vulnerable group now appears mandatory in any media story.
From allegations presented as facts by Ukraine’s Human Rights Commissioner Lyudmyla Denisova and picked up by The British Daily Mail and the US New York Times in May, of multiple repeated child rapes and murders near Kiev. Meanwhile, Newsweek also in May ran the headline “Russians Targeting Kids’ Beds, Rooms With Explosives: Ukrainian Bomb Team”; what kind of sick minds dream this up?! Although written in a news format, both headlines carried disclaimers that the content remained unverified. In which case, why report it as news? One assumes that in time these stories will join Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction and the Ghost of Kyiv hoaxes.
The problem with current western propaganda is that it relies on sensationalism and each manufactured story must outdo the last to retain its WOW effect. In today’s world, neighbors Poland and Slovakia propose building an oil “peace pipeline” as opposed to what Polish President Morawiecki refers to as the German Nordstream “war pipeline.” Meanwhile, debate continues to rage over why Russia is shelling itself in the Zaporizhzia nuclear power plant with American made missiles and fragments of US HIMARS missiles found in Yelenovka, where 57 Azov prisoners died and 130 were wounded whilst giving testimony for the upcoming War Crimes trials. Getting rid of the evidence?
Who will western politicians blame if the weapons they’re sending to the Ukraine are responsible for another Chernobyl type incident as inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency arrive at the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant and before entering suggest the facility be handed back to the Ukrainian authorities. Am I the only one aghast at the thought of a nuclear plant in the hands of the Ukraine armed forces which number Neo-Nazi militia battalions in their ranks?
That the Ukraine is not about freedom and democracy but Russian regime change isn’t a well-kept secret. A year before the 2014 overthrow of Yanukovych, Carl Gershman, Director of US NGO National Endowment for Democracy (NED) had already stated: “Ukraine is the biggest prize … If it could be pulled away from Russia and into the West, Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.” More recently, on the first of March 1st 2022, a spokesman for the British Prime Minister said, “but the measures [sanctions] we are introducing, that large parts of the world are introducing, are to bring down the Putin regime.” Or as Bruno Le Maire, French Minister of the Economy and Finance stated, “We are going to wage a total economic and financial war on Russia.”
Conversely, the opposite has happened. At the beginning of the intervention the ruble stood at 85 to the dollar. Yet today it’s 61.35; in other words, the ruble is actually strengthening against the dollar. No matter the amount or severity of sanctions, major oil producers, despite what any other calamities befall them, do not go bankrupt.
Yet six months into the incursion, the adverse effects of sanctions on energy and industrial fertilizers are becoming all too visible in the west. Soaring inflation and food prices, record bankruptcies and huge energy price increases as millions of Ukrainian immigrants flood into an already weakened and recession hit Western Europe. Who will blink first?
Although the west is currently in dire social and economic straits, removing President Putin and replacing him with another 1990’s Yeltsin type puppet would be a major boost for the west and Wall Street of course.
In our highly technologically advanced western societies, cheap energy and lots of it is why we exist as first-world societies. The alternative and sustainable green energy myth hasn’t happened as it doesn’t exist. If we take away our lifeblood support, what we’re beginning to experience is a terminal collapse. Despite the political pessimism and hype, when the present situation comes to an end our economies are not going to bounce back, the lost jobs aren’t going to return and inflation will not magically return to near zero. This is it, the final battle of civilizations and personally, I can do without identity politics, the homosexuality agenda, drug and crime epidemics and open borders.
Asia Teacher is a UK citizen, retired teacher of English plus Social and Political Science.
“A year before the 2014 overthrow of Yanukovych, Carl Gershman, Director of US NGO National Endowment for Democracy (NED), had already stated: ‘Ukraine is the biggest prize … If it could be pulled away from Russia and into the West, Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.'” Why is it so important to these people to destroy Russia? I’m sure this could have nothing to do with it: “On July 20, 1943, Carl Gershman was born into a Jewish family in New York City.”
(Bathsheba Crocker, otoh, apparently had no early life.)
Be sure it has everything to do!
“Sheba [Bathsheba] and her father Chester Crocker are the first parent-child combination to have both served as Assistant Secretaries of State. Crocker-the-elder was a noted Africa specialist who served in the Regan administration, and Sheba describes how his influence and the influence of her mother’s family, who were Jews who fled eastern Europe to Zimbabwe, had a profound impact on her worldview.”
— Sure… profound impact. Is this why Bathsheba has become a Banderite at heart? Decency is not her forte. Also, why has Bathsheba focused so much on the alleged [unverified] tortures in Russia while the US has an abundant record of running torture programs?
The other problem with propaganda is that it ties the leader’s hands. Even if the intel agencies get the truth to the leaders, they have to maneuver as if what the public believes is true. And of course the best propagandists are those who are inclined to think the worst, anti-Russian bigots whose confirmation bias is such that they do not believe any good news from Russia, but fall for anything negative about Russia. The NYT is such a bad newspaper that they go with woke agenda and promote Russia is Mordor angle. No responsibility as the paper of Record.
(Reuters) – Germany’s chief of defence has warned that the West must not underestimate Moscow’s military strength, saying Russia has the scope to open up a second front should it choose to do so.
https://twitter.com/phildstewart/status/1564973688155508736
“who will blink first” bet it won’t be Russia
“final battle of civilizations” I like it !!
The West, (once again), adheres to a ludicrously false narrative, and Russia is in the right. Living by lies ultimately costs more than living by the truth. (It takes scarce energy to keep all the lies peddled straight.) So, Russia will win in the end.
It looks as if there is going to be a nuclear showdown, nato thinks its going to establish a security zone around the plant in 3-5 days, and Russia says you have one day to get your info and ass out of the zone or all hell will break loose.
Starts like tomorrow morning over there.
Only the free and civilised International community can secure the plant. We cant leave this to a fossil dinosaur polluter and new Genghis Khan to take care of a global green disaster to our common core.
https://youtu.be/1Pz0npSmVk8 Common Core and NASA
Sides have been taken, and lines have been drawn, secure at ones own risk
Wish this guy could clarify exactly what he is talking about. Are NATO troops around this plant?
How can they be? The inspectors are only going to be allowed to be there for a day, they will be surrounded by Russian troops with a stop watch and a short rope for tolerance.
A Russian newsite who broadcasts in English -and unloved by our site owner and whose webaddress starts with R – has said Russia is happy to have the nuclear team stay there indefinitely! Is that true? Was it true until the Russians had the Ukros attack…I don’t know.
Russia is targeting the Jews, homosexuals and gypsies, while Ukraine targets the Nazis, stated Bathsheba Nell Crock’a’shit, US Ambassador UN.
She worked in Barry Obama’s Administration and for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
What does one expect?
“This is it, the final battle of civilizations and personally, I can do without identity politics, the homosexuality agenda, drug and crime epidemics and open borders.”
Indeed!
Oh what vile scum that rule iron-fist over us.
Groundhog Day every day, deep denial in EU Zombieland. The song that comes on the radio at 6am every morning ‘ I Got You Babe’ . . . . and they do have us, over a barrel, future uncertain, an imminent spike of 80% on Energy Bills come October. Oh my God, the food & beverage prices, up a 1/3rd. My preferred supermarket, Sea Bass fillets same price but less product, sneaky bar-stewards. As if I wouldn’t notice as I run them under the tap that they’re now only 2/3rs the size of my hand. Those fish didn’t do anything wrong, they’re innocent victims of the Depression, runaway inflation, not being bright enough to avoid the nets or hook. Much like us!
Still, we here in the UK are way better off than the pathetic EU as BoJo & Truss boasted that the UK is only 5% dependant on Russia for Energy. What cretins the former and soon to be new joke PM. They both failed to comprehend that Britain would have to pay Market Price on imports elsewhere. The sudden collapse of a dozen Energy Providers in the UK didn’t ring alarm bells as Boris slipped over to Kiev in a flak-jacket ( shoulda been a straight-jacket if life was fair ) to rendezvous with piano dick Ze.
Separately, I wonder how the war under the seas is going? I’m pretty sure there would be multi-way action there involving the USA, UK, France, Russia, China, India, and perhaps others. Of course, all countries consider such “encounters” as deep secrets.
“The problem with current western propaganda is that it relies on sensationalism and each manufactured story must outdo the last to retain its WOW effect.”
The fundamental system is based on government enforcing frauds by private banks which are able to create the public money supplies out of nothing as debts. The structure of that debt slavery system necessarily requires endless exponential growth of debts, since that is the only way that more money made out of nothing can pay the interest on the previous money made out of nothing.
One of the methods of avoiding that was to reduce interest rates to almost zero, or even relative negative in some cases. However, the overall system that dominated Globalized Neolithic Civilization, which became more recently dominated by the Anglo-American (Zionist) Finance Empire, also known as the Empire of Lies, is still the runaway making of money out of nothing to pay the bills generated by the previous money made out of nothing. Overall, that money made out of nothing was used to pay for strip-mining the natural resources of fresh planet.
“Western Propaganda and its Aftermath” most important manifestations are through the “legalized counterfeiting” systems whereby public governments enforce frauds by private banks, and the big corporations that grow up around those banks being able to issue the public money supplies through nothing more than the apparently magical mathematics of bookkeeping tricks.
Think about everything that the money controls, then think of who controls the money supplies, then think of that operating for generation after generation. To be socially successful was to function inside of the already established and deeply entrenched monetary and taxation systems.
Profit from frauds could be reinvested in more frauds. Furthermore, the maximum leverage existing through the funding of the political processes enabling the successful corruption of the government, in ways which often would pay off a thousand fold.
The notions regarding “propaganda” in the article above were relatively superficial, ending with a kind of short knee jerk list of some of the divide and rule strategies that are being pushed toward oblivion.
Consider that enforced frauds achieve symbolic robberies. Furthermore, consider that those are being done in ways which have become trillions, then hundreds of trillions of units of currencies created out of nothing as debts.
The deeper and more important “propaganda” includes developing sociopolitical systems that are able to deliberately ignore the principle of the conservation of energy, while misunderstanding the concept of entropy in absurdly backward ways, all so that the vast majority of people may continue to accept being robbed blind by the debt slavery systems that they were born into.
Real, radical, revolutions change who issues the public money supplies. Nothing less than that in “The West” would be sufficient, and it certainly is necessary.
However, doing so would require enough people to understand that money is measurement backed by murder, and thus, the ways whereby a tiny, tiny, minority was, and still is, able to control the creation of new public money out of nothing as debts.
The depth of the “propaganda” is due to generation after generation, after generation, being born, living, and dying within that overall debt slavery system that surrounded them from cradle to grave.
“Propaganda” in “The West” has driven the symbolic further and further away from the physical, although that all became quite an unprecedented surreality when “The West” relatively rapidly and recently developed globalized electronic monkey money frauds, backed by threat of force from apes with atomic weapons.
“Propaganda” in “The “West” is literally locked into the feedback loops of the funding of the political processes whereby “each manufactured story must outdo the last.”
“Propaganda” in “The West” is riding on top of the attempts to endlessly increase debts at about exponential rates. The fact that is absolutely impossible is not allowed to appear in any publicly significant public debates. Indeed, it is politically impossible in “The West” at the present time to have any effective and wide-spread recognition that money is measurement backed by murder.
Rather, the ways that continues to operate are primarily due to all aspects of the feedback loops of the profits from frauds being reinvested in more frauds, wherein doing so through the funding of the political processes, in prolonged and persistent ways, achieved the almost total corruption of the existing systems.
“Propaganda” in “The West” is the manifestation of runaway criminal insanities, due to the previous excessive successfulness of “The West,” as the greatest flourishing of triumphant organized crime, whose supreme achievement was their “legalized counterfeiting.”
Your long rant can be boiled down to:
BLACKROCK, VANGUARD, STATE STREET and BLACKSTONE
…and the one ring to hold and unite them all…
ALADDIN
I suspect there’s a little bit more going on in the Ukraine than a few US companies making a profit from it.
Monopoly – a Fascinating Documentary on How the World Works
That video provides an excellent summary
of the degree to which there has developed
runaway Ouroboros of Incorporated Robbery!
http://www.bitchute.com/video/9rDCjgK2EWF0/
$21 TRILLION |
HOW BLACKROCK’S ALGORITHM “ALADDIN”
WORKS TO OWN MOST OF THE PLANET
The issue is not homosexuality, gender theories, etc. What the West is looking for is for us to live in confusion, so that we are unable to know the OBJECTIVE TRUTH and make it impossible to reach the truth with relativism.
This is not new in the West, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (late fifteenth century) was the first to propose this heretical proposition that later shaped today’s Liberalism:
“I have not given you a form, nor a specific function, to you, Adam. For this reason, you will have the form and function you want. The nature of other creatures I have given according to my desire. But you will have no limits. You will define your own limitations according to your free will. I will place you in the center of the universe, so that it is easier for you to dominate your surroundings. I have not made you mortal, nor immortal; neither of Earth, nor of Heaven. In such a way, that you can transform yourself into whatever you want. You can descend to the lowest form of existence as if you were a beast or you may instead be reborn beyond the judgment of your own soul, among the highest spirits, those who are divine.”
In his interpretation of Plato’s Genesis and Timaeus he proclaims idealism, “I am what I want to believe, not God.” Nowadays, after decades of offering the irrational as rational through television, cinema and other media, it does not surprise me that people are incapable of reasoning with logic and common sense in the face of facts. An example, an acquaintance of mine, professor of philosophy at the University of New York, commented that before a development of Aristotle’s thought one of his students rejected his arguments, his, because that was not what the TELEVISION said !!!! (sic)
A good example of Western propaganda methods comes from Czechia:
In the Czech Wikipedia, Brezhnev ‘s nationality was rewritten
“Only this morning, the Secretary General of the USSR Leonid Brezhnev was a Ukrainian, but in the afternoon he became a Russian. However, according to his passport, he is Ukrainian,” one of the users of social networks noted.
Indeed, if earlier in the Wikipedia article in Czech the Soviet Secretary General had Ukrainian nationality indicated, now it is claimed that he was Russian.
#SputnikCzech writes that the changes to the article were made after the next anniversary of the Warsaw Pact troops entering Czechoslovakia, the decision on which was made by Leonid Ilyich.
“The same situation as with the deleted Wikipedia article about the Alley of Angels in Donetsk… They are afraid of the truth!” — users comment.
“Someone has to find this editor and tell him that he won’t make anyone love Ukrainians with a lie.”
https://t.me/sputnik/11461
David Chapelle has conclusively proven that it’s worse to insult a gay person that it is to murder a black man in America.
Leaving aside the usual ‘it’s the Jews’, the Ukraine is a war to enforce US hegemony against the dissenters, just as the Middle East was. The west doesn’t do colonization to get what it wants anymore, it takes what it needs in the name of bringing ‘freedom and democracy.’ The results are the same.
President Putin won’t let himself be bogged down in another nine year Afghanistan fiasco, or the recent decades old US attempt. The west isn’t going to pump cash and weapons indefinitely into a lost cause and when western politicians experience what the economic chaos of a west with limited energy supplies produces, Zelensky will be replaced with a more moderate puppet and negotiations will begin, which won’t be in the distant future.
Russia would be wise to make its border with the Ukraine short. And definitely west of Kiev. Why invite trouble?
The entire West is ruled by narcissistic elites. These people weren’t born like this. These so called well educated, connected and sometimes wealthy people grew up and come from an environment of Godlessness, individualism and materialism (and a few more -isms).
When there is no spiritual foundation and no accountability to a higher power, you rely solely on your instinctual moral compass (that God has instilled into your soul to begin with). If this instinct is corrupted by the materialistic world, then here is no limits to what you can do. Lie, cheat, steal and manipulate for attention, money, sex and power.
The fact that these elites rule entire continents, is an indication of the state of the West (but also the World) and the times we are living in.
Yes. The Internet is alive with aethists (usually from the younger generation) proclaiming they have their own superior morals and don’t need those offered by Christ. The 20th century provides numerous examples of what happens when these people assume power.
So you’re saying only god can give morals to people? Come on you dunk on atheists saying they act morally superior and then proceed to say this century offers examples for what happens when “these people” assume power, essentially claiming “No, Christ is the moral superiority”. Literally doing the same thing you just dunked on.
Anyone cam have morals, but the 20th century is an example of what happens when atheists use their own morals to try to create utopias. The same is happening now as western populations begin to put their trust in the morality of politicans and the result is social chaos. The Bible was here long before new-age atheist beliefs and today’s Human Rights Acts which try to offer a substitute.
Okay, probably the most religion country is Israel, there are a lot of articles just on this site alone, calling out Israel for just being a puppet, killing innocents etc etc. So needless to say the argument that a book provides better morals than an ongoing process of discussion and debate is flawed. The fact that is it thousands of years old is an argument against. So what countries have this strong atheist leadership claiming to be morally superior, but is in social chaos?
The ‘debate’ on Israel has been doing the rounds for decades, it’s not even news anymore and no amount of dialogue changed anything. The USSR, Mao’s China, and Pol Pot’s Cambodia are previous examples of where atheism led. North Korea is a current example. It’s not a coincidence that when these man-made monstrosities collapse the people don’t vote for more of it, but overwhemingly vote to return to tradition in which religion plays a key role.
It took Russia less than three decades to bounce back from post communism with an emphasis on tradition, family values and religion. It’s taken the west less than three decades to sink using Human Rights Acts, promises to feed the world, change the earth’s climate and elevating politicians to God-like status. The results are shaping up to become another man-made disaster.
If anything western populations despise their politicians? Looking at approval ratings its rare to see anything above 50%. Again I’d say the opposite is true, take Trump, who platformed heavily in family values, god, against climate change policies. Trump is the most god-like, second reincarnation of Jesus, whatever else to his “followers”. No single document/book/human rights act should proclaim to have “superior morals”, humans as individuals have the capacity to decide.
It is good that basic human rights are being written as laws, yes we should try to feed everyone, and earth’s climate is changing and we should do something about it, how are those bad things? Arguably just following someone/ideology with strong religion and traditional ties doesn’t mean you somehow avoid disasters, its always more nuanced and individual to situations.
In the US, half the country recently thought Obama was a returning Messiah come to heal America followed by the other half who thought Trump was God come to make America great, producing a near civil war among their respective followers. That’s what happens when populations put their trust and faith in the morality of politicians.
How’s feeding the earth and changing the earth’s climate going then? Any chance of it happening? What about the promised green energy source and Net Zero Carbon 2030 replacing fossil fuels? Perhaps we should ask the political elites to perform other magical feats?
Read the Ten Commandments and there’s your thousands of years old Human Rights Act. Followed by the UN Declaration of Human Rights, 1948. Enforcing political correctness is not a human right, it’s a recent example of liberal stupidity. In one generation, the political elite’s and their followers have almost destroyed western civilization and the traditions it was built on.
Good article, last paragraph in particular.
Morawiecki is the Polish PM, not the president
When nuclear disaster happens, they can blame whoever they want, what good will it do? We are doomed, but it is not our fault doesn’t help!
«why, if the majority population loathe today’s western politicians, do they passionately and often even fanatically believe their every word?»
They don’t necessarily believe, most realize that especially in wartime they have to conform, and just don’t want to get into trouble and be blacklisted or lose their jobs. “The nail that sticks out will be hammered”.
https://www.pepysdiary.com/diary/1664/08/07/
“While we were talking came by several poor creatures carried by, by constables, for being at a conventicle. They go like lambs, without any resistance. I would to God they would either conform, or be more wise, and not be catched!”
Propaganda never encourages critical thinking, just listen and repeat, like mindless parrots.
«if the majority population loathe today’s western politicians»
I think that a large minority may loathe them, another large minority don’t care, and a large minority. especially in the UK, worship them for making them richer and richer over 40 years of boom (for them), for example:
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/jun/29/how-right-to-buy-ruined-british-housing
«I spoke to Phil Salter, a 79-year-old retired carpenter in Cornwall, who bought his council house in Devon in the early 80s for £17,000. When it was valued at £80,000 in 1989, he sold up and used the equity to put towards a £135,000 fisherman’s cottage in St Mawes. Now it’s valued at £1.1m. “I was very grateful to Margaret Thatcher,” he said.»
For many older people across Europe their good final salary pensions and/or huge property profits mean that they are quite content.
@ Blissex
Quite content at what cost the burgeoning homeless population? I have a friend who just sold his house only ten years old which he built probably costing him little more than 300,000 for 1.7 million dollars here in the lower mainland of BC. A house with no fancy views out the windows except the neighbors next door. Further all the fixtures are no name costco brand and the floors all laminate. To say i was gobsmacked is of course an understatement. what gets me though is he could never with his income buy the place himself and thats what blows my mind more anything. All the people I work with not one makes an income that can support the cost of a house worth 1.7 million dollars. Not one including our directors of a gas company! He has to work at two jobs and has to have a basement suite to help support. And my friend is not alone. Others who have basic nonsense for a house are selling them for one million plus?
I sat in on an investment seminar at work and the guy said now is not the time to be buying as prices are so out of control its bizarre and actually said homes should not be selling for more than three times the cost of a build but in some places the prices are 5-8 times the cost? Justification? Some argue not enough supply to go around. I say greed. But of course Michael Hudson says its because of land values. Its not the homes themselves that make the price.
I however, like what the central banker Paul Warburg said after witnessing the roaring 20’s
“The world lives in a fools paradise based upon fictitious wealth, rash promises and mad illusions. We must beware of booms based upon false prosperity which has its roots in inflated credits and prices.
I’d like one question answered could Phil Salter afford on a carpenter’s income his 1.1 million house? further in two years time is it going to go up another one hundred thousand? 5 years? ten years down the road lol? the way things are going a house may be what 100 million dollars?
Nonsense all of it or false prosperity rather. Fictitious wealth!
The Domestic Ruble should be backed by Gold for the immediate and long term benefits to Russian citizens and Russian organizations exclusively.
The External so-called “International Ruble” can “float” or “go to market” as a currency backed by Oil and gas and other essential Russian commodities.
This equation – a Domestic Ruble plus External Ruble (DR + ir) – defines THE NEW RUBLE.
Propaganda always seems well funded with a very real enforcer that takes out the very best opposition, usually locals with no resources except the truth.
For me the ascent of perversity to mainstream dominance is a very clever mammoth distraction. The absurd has gone mainstream and the future of humanity will find be determined by sterile, self hating imbeciles. No, it won’t.
We scurry about ranting over foolishness when the real battles should be about cancelling digital passports, the lack of any meaningful media or debate. The imposition of Fascism over all major institutions. The casual dismissal of the Nuremberg principles and it would seem any and all constitutional law.
It struck me this morning, in whom do we trust? Name the institution in North America we can trust. I put forward RFK Jr’s Children’s Health Defense. Confirmed by the recent media blast firmly establishing that his father, yes indeed, murdered Marylyn Monroe. How transparent can they get? Jr gets major traction with his latest book, so lets demonize his father.
I propose a new law. If you watch mainstream media more than an hour a day, you lose the right to vote, permanently. Hey no crazier than a supreme court justice, who’s also a mother, not being able to define a woman.
If push comes to shove, a majority will always, always support the apparent interest of their own, as a general rule. Europeans will double down and suffer an energy crisis and blame Russia. As long as they survive, it is easier to blame Russia.