Introduction by the Saker: During my recent hurricane-induced evacuation from Florida, I had the pleasure to see some good friends of mine (White Russian emigrés and American Jews who now consider themselves American and who fully buy into the official propaganda about the USA) who sincerely think of themselves as liberals, progressives and anti-imperialists. These are kind, decent and sincere people, but during our meeting they made a number of statements which completely contradicted their professed views. After writing this letter to them I realized that there might be many more people out there who, like myself, are desperately trying to open the eye of good but completely mislead people about the reality of Empire. I am sharing this letter in the hope that it might maybe offer a few useful talking points to others in their efforts to open the eyes of their friends and relatives.
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Dear friends:
During our conversation you stated the following:
- The USA needs a military
- One of the reasons why the USA needs a military are regimes like the North Korean one
- The USA has a right to intervene outside its borders on a) pragmatic and b) moral grounds
- During WWII the USA “saved Europe” and acquired a moral right to “protect” other friends and allies
- The Allies (USSR-US-UK) were morally superior to the Nazis
- The Americans brought peace, prosperity and freedom to Europe.
- Yes, mistakes were made, but this is hardly a reason to forsake the right to intervene
I believe that all seven of these theses are demonstratively false, fallacies based on profoundly mistaken assumptions and that they all can be debunked by common sense and indisputable facts.
But first, let me tackle the Delphic maxim “know thyself” as it is, I believe, central to our discussion. For all our differences I think that there are a number of things which you would agree to consider as axiomatically true, including that Germans, Russians, Americans and others are roughly of equal intelligence. They also are roughly equally capable of critical thinking, personal investigation and education. Right? Yet, you will also agree that during the Nazi regime in Germany Germans were very effectively propagandized and that Russians in Soviet Russia were also effectively propagandized by their own propaganda machine. Right? Do you have any reason to suppose that we are somehow smarter or better than those propagandized Germans and Russians and had we been in their place we would have immediately seen through the lies? Could it be that we today are maybe also not seeing through the lies we are being told?
It is also undeniable that the history of WWII was written by the victors of WWII. This is true of all wars – defeated regimes don’t get to freely present their version of history. Had the Nazis won WWII, we would all have been treated to a dramatically different narrative of what took place. Crucially, had the Nazis won WWII, there is absolutely no reason whatsoever to believe that the German people would have shown much skepticism about the version of history presented in their schools. Not only that, but I would submit that most Germans would also believe that they were free people and that the regime they live under was a benevolent one.
You doubt that?
Just think of the number of Germans who declared that they had no idea how bad the Nazi regime really was. Even Hitler’s personal secretary, Traudl Junge, used that excuse to explain how she could have worked for so many years with Hitler and even like him so much. There is an American expression which says “where I sit is where I stand”. Well, may I ask – where are we sittting and are we so sure that we have an independent opinion which is not defined by where we sit (geographically, politically, socially and even professionally)?
You might ask about all the victims of the Nazi regime, would they not be able to present their witness to the German people and the likes of Traudl Junge? Of course not: the dead don’t speak very much, and their murderers rarely do (lest they themselves end up dead). Oh sure, there would be all sorts of dissidents and political activists who would know the truth, but the “mainstream” consensus under a victorious Nazi Germany would be that Hitler and the Nazis liberated Europe from the Judeo-Bolshevik hordes and the Anglo-Masonic capitalists.
This is not something unique to Germany, by the way. If you take the Russian population today, it has many more descendants of executioners than descendants of executed people and this is hardly a surprise since dead people don’t reproduce. As a result, the modern Russian historiography is heavily skewed towards whitewashing the Soviet crimes and atrocities. To some degree this is a good thing, because it counteracts decades of US anti-Soviet propaganda, but it often goes too far and ends up minimizing the actual human cost of the Bolshevik experiment in Russia.
So how do the USA compare to Germany and Russia in this context?
Most Americans trust the version of history presented to them by their own “mainstream”. Why? How is their situation objectively different from the situation of Germans in a victorious Third Reich? Our modern narrative of WWII was also written by victors, victors who had a vested reason in demonizing all the other sides (Nazis and Soviets) while presenting us with a heroic tale of liberation. And here is the question which ought to really haunt us at night: what if we had been born not Russians and Jews after a Nazi defeat but if we had been born Germans after an Allied defeat in WWII? Would we have been able to show enough skepticism and courage to doubt the myths we were raised with? Or would we also be doubleplusgoodthinking little Nazis, all happy and proud to have defeated the evil Judeo-Bolshevik hordes and the Anglo-Masonic capitalists?
Oh sure, Hitler considered Jews as parasites which had to be exiled and, later, exterminated and he saw Russians as subhumans which needed to be put to work for the Germanic Master Race and whose intelligentsia also needed to be exterminated. No wonder that we, Jews and Russians, don’t particularly care for that kind of genocidal racist views. But surely we can be humans before being Jews and Russians, and we can accept that what is bad for us is not necessarily bad for others. Sure, Hitler was bad news for Jews and Russians, but was he really so bad news for “pure” (Aryan Germanic) Germans? More importantly, if we had been born “pure” Germans, would we have have cared a whole lot about Jews and Russians? I sure hope so, but I have my doubts. I don’t recall any of us shedding many tears about the poly-genocided (a word I coined for a unique phenomenon in history: the genocide of all the ethnicities of an entire continent!) Native Americans! I dare say that we are a lot more prone to whining about the “Holocaust” or “Stalinism”, even though neither of them ever affected us personally, (only our families and ethnicity) than about the poly-genocide of Native Americans. I very much doubt that our whining priorities would have been the same if our ethnicity had been Lakota or Comanche. Again, I hope that I am wrong. But I am not so sure.
Either way, my point is this:
We are hard-coded to be credulous and uncritically accept all the demonization of Nazis and Soviets because we are Jews and White Russians. Careful here, I am NOT saying that the Nazis and Soviets were not evil – they definitely were – but what I am saying is that we, Jews and Russians, are far more willing to accept and endorse any version of history which makes the Nazis and Soviets some kind of exceptionally evil people and that, in contrast, we almost instinctively reject any notion that “our” side (in this case I mean *your* side, the American one since you, unlike me, consider yourselves American) was just as bad (if only because your side never murdered Jews and Russians). So let’s look at this “our/your side” for a few minutes.
By the time the USA entered WWII it had already committed the worse crime in human history, the poly-genocide of an entire continent, followed by the completely illegal and brutal annexation of the lands stolen from the Native Americans. Truly, Hitler would have been proud. But that is hardly all, the Anglo invaders then proceeded to wage another illegal and brutal war of annexation against Mexico from which they stole a huge chunk of land which includes modern Texas, California, Nevada, Utah, Arizona and New Mexico! Yes, all this land was illegally occupied and stolen by your side not once, but TWICE! And do I even need to mention the horrors of slavery to add to the “moral tally” of your side by the time the US entered the war? Right there I think that there is more than enough evidence that your side was morally worse than either the Nazis or the Soviets. The entire history of the USA is one of endless violence, plunder, hypocrisy, exploitation, imperialism, oppression and wars. Endless wars of aggression. None of them defensive by any stretch of the imagination. That is quite unique in human history. Can you think of a nastier, more bloodthirsty regime? I can’t.
Should I even mention the British “atrocities tally”, ranging from opium wars, to the invention of concentration camps, to the creation of Apartheid, the horrors of the occupation of Ireland, etc. etc. etc.?
I can just hear you say that yes, this was horrible, but that does not change the fact that in WWII the USA “saved Europe”. But is that really so?
To substantiate my position, I have put together a separate PDF file which lists 5 sources, 3 in English, 2 in Russian. You can download it here:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0ByibNV3SiUooWExTNGhMTGF5azQ
I have translated the key excerpts of the Russian sources and I am presenting them along with the key excerpts of the English sources. Please take a look at this PDF and, if you can, please read the full original articles I quote. I have stressed in bold red the key conclusions of these sources. You will notice that there are some variations in the figures, but the conclusions are, I think, undeniable. The historical record show that:
- The Soviet Union can be credited with the destruction of roughly 80% of the Nazi military machine. The US-UK correspondingly can be credited with no more than 20% of the Allied war effort.
- The scale and scope of the battles on the Eastern Front completely dwarf the biggest battles on the Western Front. Battles in the West involved Divisions and Brigades, in the East they involved Armies and Groups of Armies. That is at least one order of magnitude of difference.
- The USA only entered the war a year after Stalingrad and the Kursk battle when it was absolutely clear that the Nazis would lose the war.
The truth is that the Americans only entered the war when it was clear that the Nazis would be defeated and that their real motive was not the “liberation of oppressed Europe” but to prevent the Soviets from occupying all of Europe. The Americans never gave a damn about the mass murder of Jews or Russians, all they cared about was a massive land-grab (yet again).
[Sidebar: By the way, and lest you think that I claim that only Americans act this way, here is another set of interesting dates:
Nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki: August 6 and 9, 1945
Soviet Manchurian Strategic Offensive Operation: August 9–20, 1945
We can clearly see the same pattern here: the Soviets waited until it was absolutely certain that the USA had defeated the Japanese empire before striking it themselves. It is also worth noting that it took the Soviets only 10 days to defeat the entire Kwantung Army, the most prestigious Army of the Japanese Empire with over one million well-trained and well-equipped soldiers! That should tell you a little something about the kind of military machine the Soviet Union had developed in the course of the war against Nazi Germany (see here for a superb US study of this military operation)]
Did the Americans bring peace and prosperity to western Europe?
To western Europe, to some degree yes, and that is because was easy for them: they ended the war almost “fresh”, their (stolen) homeland did not suffer the horrors of war and so, yes, they could bring in peanut butter, cigarettes and other material goods. They also made sure that Western Europe would become an immense market for US goods and services and that European resources would be made available to the US Empire, especially against the Soviet Union. And how did they finance this “generosity”? By robbing the so-called Third World blind, that’s all. Is that something to be proud of? Did Lenin not warn as early as 1917 that “imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism”? The wealth of Western Europe was built by the abject poverty of the millions of Africans, Asians and Latin Americas.
But what about the future of Europe and the European people?
There a number of things upon which the Anglos and Stalin did agree to at the end of WWII: The four Ds: denazification, disarmament, demilitarisation, and democratisation of a united Germany and reparations to rebuild the USSR. Yes, Stalin wanted a united, neutral Germany. As soon as the war ended, however, the Anglos reneged on all of these promises: they created a heavily militarized West Germany, they immediately recruited thousands of top Nazi officials for their intelligence services, their rocket program and to subvert the Soviet Union. Worse, they immediately developed plans to attack the Soviet Union. Right at the end of the WWII, Anglo powers had at least THREE plans to wage war on the USSR: Operation Dropshot, Plan Totality and Operation Unthinkable. Here are some basic reminders from Wikipedia about what these operations were about:
Operation Dropshot: included mission profiles that would have used 300 nuclear bombs and 29,000 high-explosive bombs on 200 targets in 100 cities and towns to wipe out 85% of the Soviet Union’s industrial potential at a single stroke. Between 75 and 100 of the 300 nuclear weapons were targeted to destroy Soviet combat aircraft on the ground.
Plan Totality: earmarked 20 Soviet cities for obliteration in a first strike: Moscow, Gorki, Kuybyshev, Sverdlovsk, Novosibirsk, Omsk, Saratov, Kazan, Leningrad, Baku, Tashkent, Chelyabinsk, Nizhny Tagil, Magnitogorsk, Molotov, Tbilisi, Stalinsk, Grozny, Irkutsk, and Yaroslavl.
Operation Unthinkable: assumed a surprise attack by up to 47 British and American divisions in the area of Dresden, in the middle of Soviet lines. This represented almost a half of roughly 100 divisions (ca. 2.5 million men) available to the British, American and Canadian headquarters at that time. (…) The majority of any offensive operation would have been undertaken by American and British forces, as well as Polish forces and up to 100,000 German Wehrmacht soldiers.
[Were you aware of these? If not, do you now wonder why?]
I am not making these things up, you can look it up for yourself on Wikipedia and elsewhere. This is the Anglo idea of how you deal with Russian “allies”: you stab them in the back with a surprise nuclear attack, you obliterate most of their cities and you launch the Nazi Wehrmacht against them.
I won’t even go into the creation of NATO (before the WTO – known in the West as the “Warsaw Pact” – was created in response) or such petty crimes as false flag terrorist attack (Operation Gladio).
[Have you ever heard of Operation Gladio or the August 1980 “Bologna massacre”, the bombing of the Bologna train station by NATO secret terrorist forces, a false-flag terrorist attack (85 dead, over 200 wounded) designed to discredit the Communist Party of Italy? If not – do you now wonder why you never heard of this?]
The sad reality is that the US intervention in Europe was a simple land-grab, that the Cold War was an Anglo creation, as was the partition of Europe, and that since WWII the USA always treated Europe as a colony form which to fight the “Communist” threat (i.e. Russia).
But, let’s say that I am all wrong. For argument’s sake. Let’s pretend that the kind-hearted Americans came to Europe to free the European people. They heroically defeated Hitler and brought (Western) Europe peace, prosperity, freedom, happiness, etc. etc. etc.
Does this good deed give the USA a license for future interventions? You both mentioned WWII as an example and a justification for the need for the USA to maintain a military large enough to counter regimes such as the North Korean one, right? So, let me ask again,
Does the fact that the USA altruistically, kindly and heroically liberated Europe from both the Nazis and the Soviets now grant the moral legitimacy to other, subsequent, US military interventions against other abhorrent, aggressive or evil regimes/countries out there?
If you reply “no” – then why did you mention it as a justification?
If you reply “yes” – then please forgive me for being so obtuse and ask you for how long this “license to militarily intervene” remains valid? One year? Five years? Maybe ten or even seventy years? Or maybe this license grants such a moral right to the USA ad aeternam, forever? Seriously, if the USA did liberate Europe and bring it peace and happiness, are we to assume that this will remain true forever and everywhere?
I also want to ask you this: let’s say, for the argument’s sake, that the moral license given by the US participation in the war in Europe is, truly, forever. Let’s just assume that, okay? But let me ask you this: could it be revoked (morally, conceptually)? Say the USA did something absolutely wonderful in Europe. What about the subsequent horrors in southeast Asia, Latin America or the Middle-East. How many murdered, maimed, occupied, terrorized, bombed and otherwise genocided “non-West Europeans” would it take to outweigh the putatively “happily liberated” Europeans which, according to you, grant the USA the license to intervene? Even if the US in Europe was all noble and pure, do the following seventy years of evil mass murder worldwide really count for nothing or does there come a point were “enough is enough” and the license can be revoked, morally speaking, by people like us, like you?
May I point out to you that your words spoken in defense of a supposed need for the USA to maintain a military capable of overseas operations strongly suggest that you believe that the USA has a moral right (if not a duty!) to conduct such operations, which means that the post WWII atrocity-tally of the USA is not, in your opinion, sufficient to elicit a “enough is enough” reaction in you. Are you sure that you are comfortable with this stance?
In theory, there could be another reason to revoke such a moral license. After all, one can have the moral right to do something, but not necessarily the capability to do so. If I see somebody drowning in a flood, I most certainly have the moral right to jump in the water and try to save this person, do I not? But that does not mean that I have the strength or skills to do so. Right? So when you say that the USA needs to maintain a military capable of protecting friends and allies from rogue and dangerous regimes like the one in North Korea, you do imply that besides having the right to extend such a protection the USA also has the capabilities and the expertise to do so?
Really?
And what is the evidence for that, may I ask?!
I asked you to name me a single successful US military intervention since WWII and you could name none. Good! I agree with you. The reality is that every single US military operation since WWII has resulted in a disaster either on the humanitarian, political and military level (often on all of them combined). Even Grenada was a total (military) failure! Also, do you see who sits in the White House today? Do you really want The Donald in charge of protecting “our friends and allies” and are you confident that he has the skillset needed to do this competently? Or Hillary for that matter? Even Sanders has a record of defending catastrophic military operations, such as the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 2006 which, you guessed it (or not), ended in abject defeat for the Israelis and untold civilians horrors in Lebanon. But forget the President, take a look at US generals – do they inspire in you the belief that they are the kind of people who can be trusted to skillfully execute a military intervention inspired by moral and ethical reasons?! What about US “Congresspersons”? Would you trust them? So where do you see honest and competent “saviors of others” in the US polity?
Did you notice that there was no Islamic State in Iraq before the US invasion? Or did you notice that ever since the US declared a war on ISIS the latter has been getting stronger and stronger and taking over more countries. Yes, of course, once the Russians got involved ISIS began suffering defeat after defeat, but all the Americans had to say about the Russian intervention was to denounce it and predict it would fail. So why is it that the Russians are so good at fighting ISIS and the Americans, and their allies, so bad? Do you really want the Americans in charge of world security with such a record?!
Is insanity not repeating the same thing over and over again expecting different results?
Now I hear the reply you gave me to this point. You said “yes, mistakes were made”.
Mistakes?!
I don’t think that millions of murdered people, including hundreds of thousands of children, are “mistakes” (how would you react if somebody conceded to you that Hitler and Stalin made “mistakes”?). But there is something even more insidious in this notion of “mistake”.
How would you define “success”?
Say the US armed forces were not only good at killing people (which they are), but also good at winning wars (which they ain’t). Say the USA had been successful in not only invading Iraq and Afghanistan, but also in fully pacifying these countries. Say the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan would have been successfully defeated, their economy had bounced back, and democratic regimes put in power: capitalism everywhere, 100 channels on each TV, McDonalds in every Afghan villages, gay pride parades in downtown Kabul, gender-neutral toilets in every mosque, elections every 4 years or so and not a single shot fired, not a single bomb going off? Would that be a “success”?
I pray to God and hope with all my heart that your reply to this question is a resounding “no!!”. Because if you answered “yes” then you are truly messianic genocidal imperialists. Yup, I mean that. Why? Because your notion of “success” is the spiritual, psychological and cultural death of an ancient civilization and that makes you, quite literally, an mortal enemy of mankind as a whole. I can’t even imagine such a horror. So I am sure that you answered “no!!” as every decent human being would, right?
But then what is a “success”? You clearly don’t mean the success as defined by your rulers (they would enthusiastically support such an outcome; in fact – they even promise it every time over and over again!). But if their idea of “success” is not yours, and if you would never want any other nation, people or ethnicity to ever become a victim of such as “successful” military intervention, why do you still want your rulers with their satanic notion of “success” to have the means to be “successful” in the future? And that in spite of the fact that the historical record shows that they can’t even achieve any type of “success” even by their own definition, nevermind yours?!
Did you notice that nowhere in my arguments above did I mention the fact that the USA has never asked people (as opposed to local Comprador elites) whether they wanted to be saved by Uncle Sam or not? Neither did they ask the American people if they wanted to go to war, hence all the well-known false flags from the “remember the Maine”, to the sinking of the RMS Lusitania, to Pearl Harbor, to the “Gulf of Tonkin incident”, to September 11th: every time a lie had to be concocted to convince the American people that they had to go to war. Is that really people power? Is this democracy?!
Are there people out there, anybody, who really favor US military interventions? Yes, I suppose that there are. Like the Kosovo Albanians. I suspect that the Afghan Tajiks and Hazara were pretty happy to see the US bomb the crap of the Taliban. So there might be a few cases. Oh, and I forgot our Balt and Ukrainian friends (but then, they were also happy when the Nazis came, hardly much of an example). But it is pretty safe to say that in reality nobody wants to be liberated by Uncle Sam, hence the wordwide use of the “Yankee go home” slogan.
This letter is already way too long, and I will forgo the listing of all the reasons why the USA are pretty much hated all over the planet, not by the ruling elites, of course, but by the regular people. And when I say “the USA” I don’t mean Paul Newman, Mark Twain, Miles Davis, Quentin Tarantino, James Taylor or the Bill of Rights or the beautiful country called “the USA”. But the regime, as opposed to any one specific government or administration in Washington, the regime is what is truly universally hated. I have never seen any anti-Americanism directed at the American people anywhere, not even in France, Greece or Latin America. But the hate for the Empire is quasi universal by now. Only the political elites whose status, power and well-being is dependent on the Empire do, in fact, support the Empire and what it stands for. Everybody else despises what the USA stands for today. And every military intervention only makes this worse.
And you want to make sure this continues? Really?
Right now the US is desperately trying to save al-Qaeda (aka IS, ISIS, Daesh, al-Nusra, etc.) from defeat in Syria. How is that for a moral stance after 9/11 (that is, if you accept the official narrative about 9/11; if you understand that 9/11 was a controlled demolition in which al-Qaeda patsies were used as a smokescreen, then this makes sense, by the way).
By the way – who are the current allies the US are so busy helping now?
- The Wahabi regime in Saudi Arabia
- The Nazi regime in the Ukraine and
- The last officially racist regime on the planet in Israel
Do these really strike you as allies worth supporting?!
And what are the American people getting from that? Nothing but poverty, oppression, shame, hatred, fear and untold physical, psychological and moral suffering.
These are the fruits of Empire. Every Empire. Always.
You mentioned that every time you see a veteran you thanked him for his service. Why? Do you really think that he fought in a just war, that his service is something he can be proud of? Did he fight for his people? Did he defend the innocent? Or was he an occupier in a foreign land and, if he saw combat, did he not kill people who defended their own land, their families and their way of life? What exactly do you thank that veteran for? For following orders? But is that not something the Nuremberg trials specifically condemned as immoral and illegal?
Do you remember how you told me that xxxxx’s Marine husband lived in a nice house with all their material needs taken care of? You added “compare that to Russian servicemen”. Well, you clearly are not aware of how Russian soldiers live nowadays, under your hated Putin, but that is besides the point. The question which I wanted to ask you then and which I will ask you now is this: is the comfortable lifestyle granted to US Marines good enough a reason to be a Marine – that is being part of the very first force called in to murder innocent people and invade countries? Do you even know what Marines did to Fallujah recently? How much is a human soul worth? And it is really your belief that being a hired killer for the Empire is an honorable way of life? And should you think that I am exaggerating, please read the famous essay “War is a Racket” by Marine Brigadier General Smedley Butler, who had the highest rank a Marine could achieve in his time and who was the most decorated Marine in history. If war is a racket, does that not make Marines professional racketeers, hired thugs who act as enforcers for the mobsters in power? Ask yourself this: what would be the roughly equivalent counterparts of the US Marines in Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia? To help you answer this question, let me offer a short quote from the Wikipedia entry about the Marine Corps: (emphasis added)
The Marine Corps was founded to serve as an infantry unit aboard naval vessels and was responsible for the security of the ship and its crew by conducting offensive and defensive combat during boarding actions and defending the ship’s officers from mutiny; to the latter end, their quarters on ship were often strategically positioned between the officers’ quarters and the rest of the vessel.
Does that help you identify their Nazi or Soviet counterparts?
Of all people, is it not we, Jews and Russians, who ought to recognize and categorically reject the trappings of Empire and all the rationalizations used to justify the subservient service to Empires?
I believe that history shows beyond any doubt that all Empires are evil, inherently and essentially, evil. They are also therefore equally evil. Shall I explain why?
Do you know what crimes is considered the ultimate, supreme, most evil crime under international law? It is not genocide, or crimes against humanity. Nope, the ultimate crime is the crime of aggression (that, by the way, makes every single US President a war criminal under international law, think of it!). In the the words of the chief American prosecutor at Nuremberg, Robert H. Jackson, the crime of aggression is the ultimate crime because “it contains within itself the accumulated evil” of all the other war crimes. Well, to paraphrase Jackson, imperialism contains within itself all the accumulated evil of all empires. Guantanamo, Hiroshima, Fallujah, Abu Ghraib, Gladio and all the rest, they “come with the territory”, they are not the exception, they are the norm.
The best thing which could happen to this country and its people would be the collapse of this Empire. The support, even tacit and passive, of this Empire by people like yourself only delays this outcome and allows this abomination to bring even more misery and pain upon millions of innocent people, including millions of your fellow Americans. This Empire now also threatens my country, Russia, with war and possibly nuclear war and that, in turn, means that this Empire threatens the survival of the human species. Whether the US Empire is the most evil one in history is debatable, but the fact that it is by far the most dangerous one is not. Is that not a good enough reason for you to say “enough is enough”? What would it take for you to switch sides and join the rest of mankind in what is a struggle for the survival of our species? Or will it take a nuclear winter to open your eyes to the true nature of the Empire you apparently are still supporting against all evidence?
The Saker
Saker,
maybe it is time to find new friends?
One can’t change others, only himself.
Americans/Westerners won’t oppose
any imperialistic war, until they SUFFER
the CONSEQUENCES.
You’re right. But let’s not kill the hope that people can someday open their eyes.
There are 4 reasons why people live in the Matrix (or Truman show is a much better analogy here, see below)
1. gullibillity
2. lack of interest to know the truth because truth does not affect to you
3. chauvinism
4. fear
People who live in the matrix because of ad 1) and ad 2) can be cured with letters such as the Saker wrote to his friends if (and only if) they are willing to read and listen. People who internalized ad 3) and ad 4) are unfortunately beyond repair.
One of the ‘nice’ things about the idea of the benevolent Empire is that a) you are part of the indispensable Empire, and therefore an indispensable person and b) that the moment you leave the indispensable Empire you will enter a world filled with disaster (which is the reason why prefer the Truman show analogy over the Matrix analogy when thinking about American Empire: Truman’s life will improve if he leaves the show, one cannot say that from Neo when he left the matrix and was followed, shot at, and killed against his will by the whatevers)
Suffering consequences may cure these people, but a) that is like treating a disease with a medicine that might kill a patient, and b) even then, succesful treatment is uncertain because of the all too human reaction that it is much more easy to prevent one from making a mistake (ad 1 and ad 2) than to admit that one made a mistake (ad 3 and ad 4). That of course especially applies to our intellectuals who are designed as or transformed to people who are incapable of making mistakes.
The only way out is to stop participating in the atrocities of the Empire. Guess we are all doing that here and to be honest, many people do that also in the Empire. You just don’t hear much about them when you live in the Matrix, or in the Truman show.
4. fear
Couch potatos (Americans) get it from watching horror movies. Hollywood’ve been busy since …. I have stop counting.
You got that right. I just watched Sergeant York which is a typical pre-war propaganda movie for WWII made in 1941 before we entered into the war. Yet, even in this movie his mother when asked what the US was fighting for in WWI answered “I don’t rightly know”. That is more or less true today.
I keep asking my (usually ex-friends after this) hyper-patriotic friends and veterans of the Vietnam War exactly what they fought for. The typical answer is American Freedom. Then when I follow that with we lost the war so does that mean we are less free? I get cold hard stares followed by some version of I am a traitor.
It is the same BS for every war and I cannot understand how Americans can believe this stuff. But, it is spoon fed to all Americans on a daily basis in nearly every media outlet there is. If you are anti-war at all then to most Americans you are automatically a traitor and do not support the military. Being retired military I never thought ever of the reasons for whatever conflict as it is our duty to do whatever is required of us at the highest professional level we can achieve (arguably very poor). I do not see a way out of this continuous war/propaganda cycle.
I see the US for what it is and the Saker has well described it. I cannot post it on Facebook as it is just too true and will cause me to be ostracized completely and maybe put a huge target on my forehead. That is how nuts the US is now.
Willem – People make their decisions and take action based on the information available to them. The degree to which the vast majority of information is manipulated is beyond anything humanity has ever experienced. We must refrain from condemning all of humanity for acting poorly, instead we must insist that real information, the truth, is provided and then believe that most will act appropriately.
5. Culpable ignorance.
It is better – richer and easier – living in an empire than out of one. It is better turning a blind eye and enjoying the fruits than acknowledging the injustice of imperial advantage.
Yes you might find some exceptions, however it is like talking to the wall in general.
Proclamation of military alliance of China, Russia, Turkey, Iran and other smaller players carries more hopes then “eye openers”.
I could not disagree more with the notion that a military alliance between China, Russia, Turkey, Iran or whoever else would solve any kind of problem.
Whenever there is a unipolar world, there are 2 world powers, the dominant empire and public opinion. Whoever controls the former has to control the latter, if you lose public opinion, no amount of military might will be able to save the empire, it will go down without the support of the people. The oligarchs are losing their grip on public opinion and they are losing it quick, so waking people up is far more dangerous than any military might ever was against the dominant empire. Which is why they are now getting so desperate that they are trying to shut down the internet, a mistake in social engineering, one which wasn’t that big of a deal for the last 30 years, but is now slowly but surely eroding their power away. That dimwit May in UK started to introduce the “terrorists use internet, so internet bad” narrative a couple months ago, now Trump is jumping on board. The US government is considering shutting down the internet to prevent Russia and China from taking it over in addition to Trumps ridiculous tweet in response to the latest terror attack in the UK.
Waking people up will destroy the empire. If a military block could destroy the empire, one would have formed 20 years ago and not let them rip through the middle east first. Just look at the speed at which Russia and China became the best of friends, most of the work was done in the last 3 years, since the round of illegitimate and illegal sanctions from the West.
Believe it or not, but RT and Sputnik are far more dangerous to the empire than any missile in Russias arsenal, and they are in possession of the deadliest weapons known to man. American soldiers wandered onto Russian news sites a couple of times and got woken up immediately, because the stories the Russians wrote were matching up with their own eyes on the ground, not what their commanders were feeding them with.
Yes, Serg,
It is that no matter how decisive public opinion is, its chance is much time consuming. And most decisively the 4 new allied countries (russia, china, iran plus turkey) MUST first of all have a precondition to act worlwide: have a solid, lethal and dissuasive military force with deadly weapons.
Exactly with the purpose of not needing to use it whilst they engage in any public opinion struggle.
“The pen is mightier than the sword” or in that case “the keyboard is mightier than the sword ” :)
I still haven’t read The Saker’s article but I have a *problem* with both your statements:
1) People doesn’t change their views by consequences, ever, except they can make a CONNECTION of those to the proper causes. The causes are usually installed/determined by the dominant message, so, unless you control the dominant message no one will make that connection properly (or at least not enough people will).
2) “People” is not an static entity: they are a changing heap comprised of continuous deaths and births. The dead ones will take their view somewhere else, while the newborns will acquire the dominant view contributing to its status of dominant.
Cultural stereotypes + mass media installments play a huge part in that. It can be fought, perhaps even defeated, but it’s not easy. We’ve witnessed that dynamic in Argentina a few times over several decades. Propaganda delivered 70 years ago by elites to fight Peron’s popular government still has effect today in some of the surviving targets but also in the new generations raised by them. Now we are experiencing a new but similar type of propaganda and we see people voting and even rabidly defending interests which are not theirs: middle or low class individuals taking the side and views of the rich elites. While there is a social explanation to this, it’s the dominant message which makes the difference.
As someone who once tried to be a part of an American “counter-culture”, I’ve seen exactly this in America over the decades. Slowly, those who achieved some small measure of political enlightenment in the 1960’s and after and who gathered together in a counter-culture have died off or disappeared or in the words of the Dylan lyric “became mathematicians and carpenter’s wives.”
While the youth following along become indoctrinated in the propaganda that’s become more and more pervasive over the years.
When one is young, one thinks that they are the generation that began a movement that is going to roll forward and eventually really and deeply change the world. Then one sees the next generation coming along knowing even less than you did when you were their age, and heavily bought into the propaganda. Thus the disappointment that the old seems to always feel for the young.
Last year in June I was one of those blue eyed, propaganda-drunk snowflake zombies, by August my eyes were open. Let’s not give up on people just yet.
Let’s not give up on people just yet.
That is SO true! I know it by myself: the number of stupid ideas I believed in is embarrassing.
And then there is this: I met a lot of good, sincere and well-intentioned people in all sorts of ideological movements.
So let’s not give up on people and let’s instead seek allies everywhere!
The Saker
Serg, what happened to change your perspective!
A friend of mine kept pestering me to watch a talk by a Swiss historian named Dr. Daniele Ganser, I ignored him for months until one day I had nothing to do and remembered it. I watched him dismantle the 9/11 narrative in under 2 hours and WTC7 especially woke me up. It was 2016 and it was the first time I had ever heard about WTC7. I was under the naive impression that there is no room to hide in the information age any more, with the internet and knowledge one google search away, yet here I learned something completely new, about a third building which collapsed during the most important event of this century. A building which is higher than any building in Germany (AFAIK), where I live, and the US government and media apparatus made it disappear…
My world view was shattered to pieces, rebuilt, and over the next few months when I started to read books like a madman, it was shattered and rebuilt another hundred times over as new information was coming in.
Very interesting. For me it happened somewhere around 2009. I watched Loose Change (not about Obama). I was shocked. I then moved on to Zeitgeist and so many other videos. One of my favorites, which I have watched numerous times, is Everything is a Rich Man’s Trick. Link below. Let me know what you think about it, anybody here who watches it. Cheers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1Qt6a-vaNM
Being former US Military and having a clearance at the time of the attack, the official 911 narrative stunk to high heaven. Friends at the Pentagon told a completely different story as well. The day of the event, I was watching the incoming reports, stunned that so many things had “gone wrong” – so many people not done their jobs – and all of it worked in favor of the “terrorists.” Of course, I was considered “crazy” for questioning the seemingly endless inconsistencies.
If you want to read a great book on 911, I’d suggest Christopher Bollyn’s “Solving 911” – probably the best bit of investigative journalism I’ve seen since Gary Webb’s work on the crack cocaine epidemic and it’s ties to the CIA.
Another documentary I consider worthy of someone’s time: “The Money Masters” as well as “The Secrets of Oz” (both Bill Still documentaries)
I heartily recommend ‘September Clues’ (on Youtube).
A friend of mine kept pestering me to watch a talk by a Swiss historian named Dr. Daniele Ganser, I ignored him for months until one day I had nothing to do and remembered it.
If you haven’t already, you should read his book NATO’s Secret Armies, about Operation Gladio, a direct precursor to Operation 9/11.
https://libcom.org/files/NATOs_secret_armies.pdf
I watched him dismantle the 9/11 narrative in under 2 hours and WTC7 especially woke me up.
Do you have a link for that talk?
@milosevic
I think this is the one:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fUT7XgLiTY
Ganser’s latest book, ‘Illegale Kriege’ (Illegal Wars), is also highly recommendable. Unfortunately, as far as I know, it is only available in German.
@milosevic
I have no idea, I just binge watched all of his talks in quick succession after that so they all kind of scrambled together into one in my head. Also they were in German, I’m aware he did a few in English, but most of the ones I watched were in German.
And yeah I read the book, also the one he did about Oil, not sure if it’s available in English but it was also very fascinating. Like the numbers we operate on today, like oil reserves and all, were just plucked out of thin air during the Iraq-Iran war because of OPEC rules. Saddam Hussein, who was losing the war, needed more money for more weapons so he claimed that he found new oil reserves on his territory. The new numbers allowed him to sell more oil in accordance with OPEC rules, who allow member countries to sell an amount based on how much total they have. His new numbers now overshadowed those of Saudi Arabia, who had the richest known oil deposits on their territory on the planet. They later claimed to have found even more oil in the ground and became number one again. According to the book, no records of probes for oil or other evidence exists to corroborate these newly found riches.
In other words, they fixed the numbers, we are using these numbers to this day to calculate “peak oil” and how long those reserves last. Meaning the calculations are wrong and we will be left without oil sooner than we think.
Americans are the homunculi of Edward Bernays and his uncle Sigmund Freud.
I agree with the sentiments expressed in this essay. The American people lack perspective due to an effective propaganda machine that follows them from diapers to death. This is not an excuse, it is an active part of the problem the American people have to recognize. The USA, is where I was born but have had the ‘luck’ since childhood to live afar, and ‘only’ visit. However, I am always in contact through business, close relations, follow the media circus and the political charades of the USA. The USA and it’s well being is always in my mind with the desire to see the things improve. By not living in the lower 48 the changes seem more profound and dangerous every time I visit. The expansion of the security state stares you in the face with many armed uniformed people, surveillance cameras and a myriad of untold sensor people experience when crossing into the country. That experience sheds light on people that I happen to work with, or at the very least I do business with, that is the miss-placed hyper aggression of white males in particular, as it seems to be defensive mechanism to all the fear, uncertainty and doubt that is foisted on them through the propaganda machine. The counter reaction to miss placed FUD is that it can easily turn violent through dis-information. With the current leadership in Washington, D.C., meaning all branches of the federal government, including the judiciary have become an existential threat to the safety and well being of the populace. This speaks to the class war that is happening, the statist left in the USA a still in denial of the existing class war truth, thus allowing the vacuum to be filled with hot air from the Alt-Right. The whole thing stinks, part of the American public suffer from narcissism stemming from white privilege and/or money, others are depressed and coming to terms with the lies (American Myths), they are the nearly 50 millions living on or below the poverty line and will never have a decent chance of entering the middle class, a class that no longer exists. It is obvious upon a basic examination of who is the have and the have not within the populace of the US of America. Unfortunately, nearly all of the people, the vast majority imho are mentally ill suffering from the disease of petty differences, a divide and conquer type of narcissism is practiced. The narcissism of petty differences, from skin color, ethnicity, ancestry, to what state, county, town you were born, Springfield or Shelbyville, what’s your religion, what school and what side of the tracks you were born in. It has led to the obvious tribalism, small minded provincial thinking that feeds on itself with whisper campaigns, innuendo that leads to acrimony and often a fight. Getting along and living in harmony is not a strong concept in the USA, that notion of being neighborly is a Hollywood fairytale from many decades ago. Rational thinking, discourse, diplomacy, bargaining and debate are not the average Americans first choice. The well taught and learned American response to challenges is to insult by slander, propagate mis-characterization of their challengers, to lie about their enemies, threaten violence and bully until satisfied, and satisfaction by this narcissism leads to an American war psychosis that may not be satisfied until a spasm or orgasm of violence is thrust upon the enemy. Yes, it is mostly militaristic White American males with pent up sexual frustration from being emotionally immature and sexually inept, so they try to counter their weakness through violence. You got it, Homo Narcissist Americanus (not Sapien) fucks everybody everywhere, at will, with violence all the time just as any bully rapist would do until they are stopped. Nobody needs permission to stop Homo Narcissist Americanus from it’s continuing criminality.
My political background begins with the 1960’s. Thus, I strongly disagree with your statement that Americans won’t disagree with an imperialist war. I’ve seen it first hand. Yep, I was still riding a bicycle in those days, but I saw the America around me say no to a war. And I saw a near revolution that almost succeeded in really changing things, and really did change a few things. So much of what I see in the world today is actually counter-revolution still fighting back against what was achieved in the 1960’s.
So, I know it can be done. And I know that ‘the establishment’ has gotten better at keeping control. They’ve learned the lessons from the sixties, while ‘the people’ have forgotten them. But don’t tell me that it can’t happen, because I know for a fact that it can. There are people alive because the Americans of the 60’s stopped the Vietnam War before it went on for as long as the Afghan war has gone for. The Pentagon and the Generals and their Vietnamese clients/puppets would have kept on killing, but it was Americans who rose up and stopped it. It can happen, it can happen here, it can happen again.
And I saw a near revolution that almost succeeded in really changing things, and really did change a few things.
Yes but it was not an anti-war revolution, it was an anti-draft revolution. Now that they’ve eliminated conscription nobody cares.
And the result of the 1960s was the most narcissistic, degenerate, selfish generation in US history. They started their lives at the top of the world, ascending, and they have managed to virtually destroy America through their arrogance, greed, and selfishness.
Those people were not “revolutionaries”, they were just anti-going-to-war (not anti-war at all).
The US propagand machine has of course spread massive amounts of propaganda discrediting the movements of the 1960’s and how close they came to really changing things. To my eye, ‘the establishment’ was scared by what nearly happened, and they’ve spend large amounts of money discrediting this movement. Pop culture in the west has since spit out large volumes of attacks on those who tried for real change in the world.
To me, this is someone who’s absorbed that propaganda. Note the shallow slurs towards smearing people, but no real knowledge nor understanding as to what really went on.
Which I point out not as any sort of personal insult, but simply to point out what we face in trying to achieve change in a heavily propagandized world. Those who try eventually find their children absorbing propaganda nonsense from school and pop culture.
One key clue as to the presence of propaganda is when you find yourself attacking others who’ve tried previously to change the same things you are trying to change yourself. At that point, one is obviously not thinking clearly and is likely just repeating propaganda that’s gotten into their brain through its many means and methods.
@ caldre
Correct. The narcissistic, atheistic, nihilism of the 50’s to 70’s sits at the heart of the culture of death and debt.
The worst of consumerist, shallow, recipient, soulless, warmongering American culture-less-ness was defined and all bottled up by the time the lyrics of ‘Blue suede shoes’ hit the charts.
Hi Caldre,
I would like to get in touch with you.
Could you please drop me an email at
vineyardsaker@gmail
Thanks a lot,
The Saker
Yes, it was Americans that stopped Vietnam: those Americans who realized their own children were next to be thrown into the meat grinder. Today’s soldiers are expendables. They had/have often no chance to get a decent living outside of the army, the US official mercenary force, for war is a racket. This racket is filling the pockets of the MIC workers and owners. As the children of the profiteers are not sent to the meat grinder, there is no selfish incentive to stop the racket.
Americans did not stop the Vietnam war but were “stopped” by the North Vietnamese.
Americans were also “stopped” in North Korea.
Americans have never “stopped” themselves!
“America around me said no to a war.”
No they didn’t – they said no to conscription and they said no to “American” casualties. Ask the average yank how many died in Vietnam and they will say 50k. Because dead gooks don’t count.
That of course explains why yanks can kill a million kids in Iraq but couldnt find the country on the map, just as long as its all nicely done with drones and aircraft. Kill 3k in NewYork and its a “Historic Event” but millions of gooks don’t get noticed, because gooks dont count.
@RATM,
“Saker,
maybe it is time to find new friends?”
I’m definitely not the Saker’s spokesman, but on a personal view I would say no. Friends are more than opinions, and an overall agreement on anything is just boring. Even here we have difference of opinions, and that’s just where we get new insights and points of view.
Saker’s friends have just enriched us (and them!) with a beautiful article. Thanks for that.
Cheers, Rob
Yes! Avoid separation, this is just about ideas, all beings are part of a great family rooting in the same goodness and looking for the same: timeless and unconditional compassion and joy – the highest summit that can be reached.
The most recent US war that my family has fought is the civil war. we fought both sides…starting about 1700…and after 1900 we gave up on them both. I say fought both sides… no typo. When you see your enemies fighting one another on the barricades…that’s how we see the affair today, and the affair of 1860, and indeed the entire foolish and corrupt business. We came out of the English civil war…where we also fought both sides, and also later on from the brutal Prussian invasions within Germany.
I am not persuaded that all empire is evil,or even that the implication that a world without empire is possible, but I have not changed my thoughts about the major factions within the US. These have, as any informed and logical person can easily see, ruined their beloved (?) “homeland” (a classical nazi bit of lingo…) and also their options for survival.
There may well be some atomwar – it seems pretty probable. But the end result only ruins the “homeland” and the “clubs” and the MIC… Thus whether atomwar or not, the affair is already over – the US lost due to simple-minded greed, it’s ruined itself, due, evidently, to the famous fissures Mr Clapper spoke so clearly of. Fissures such as a consistent Policy since 1492…of…well fellas, you name it.
Lincoln may have been ruthless and also correct when he planed to repatriate or expel the Negro population, but could he erase the History? US held the seeds of this time long before Lincoln, or Washington. As with any existence man creates, things have run their course…
It’s all over but the cryin’
It’s without much meaning now, because I am just about the last member of my family left alive, and I am old. And it’s easy to say, but if I were young I rather imagine I’d go…well, precisely where and how is secret, but they have beautiful winter, beautiful girls, bears…and I had the right skills… alas…old age.
When the junta withes and the business runs and the money’s worthless…I shall be obliged to watch and live the disaster up close.
Saker – a note I have pined up over my desk reminds me that when we desire to tell people something they do not want to hear, the best way to get to their mind is to make them laugh. It’s rhetoric, and it works. Nevertheless, men will believe what they wish… That’s a solid honest letter…and not very far from my own thoughts in many respects. And I do not know how to make ’em laugh…only that it works.
The continental mass of North America is large enough that it would not be a responsible matter to ignore this space and the people living in it. Russia and China, assuming things go along and we’re still alive, are going to have to “invade” (well, that’s the reality – the language can be fixed up a bit) “invade” at some future time. Essentially police the space…
In a flight of imagination one might recall the Morganthau Plan and (Gasp!) realize that the (once planned) caging of the 3rd Reich’s European space might work well in the matter of the 4th Reich….
At some time Rus and Chin are going to twig to that – but of course this is a poor time to bring it up…so they don’t…
I rather imagine they have advance parties already in place. If I were a Prince I would do that, but I am not ruthless – not Princely Material…
Thanks to Saker for that frank letter.
“maybe it is time to find new friends?”
And would you have many friends left ……
This is a world of the sheepil and if you reject them you will find yourself standing alone. It shouldnt be this way but it is. So what do you do.
fortruss reporting Iranian Revolutionary Guard has infiltrated usa military, has been following them, and hopes to produce the documentation proving their extent of activities in Syria and Iraq and their coordination with isis.
Very good text. If you wish and have a use for it I could translate it in French. Salam alaykum.
Dear Abdelnour, wa aleykum us saalam wa rahmatullahi wa barakatuh
Thanks for your kind words and suggestion. I suggest that you contact the French Saker blog and see if they want to post it. If yes, then maybe you could translate it for them?
Kind regards,
The Saker
Operation Unthinkable was Churchill’s scheme but he lost the 1945 Election to Labour; anyway the US had no interest in his plans and the Red Army had at least twice the manpower of anything the Western allies could field.
Forrestal’s Diaries are supposed to allude to FDR squeezing Chamberlain to declare war in 1939 and using US Ambassador in Paris to push the Poles to be intransigent on German demands and provoke conflict. FDR had brought a lot of newcomers into the Administration whose antipathy towards Hitler was paramount.
It is well known 80% German losses were on the Eastern Front and it was brutal. Britain relied on RAF Bomber Command to compensate for “Second Front” and 1000 Bomber raids became substitute for Churchill’s fear of a Second Gallipoli.
Then again, Italy was the ally that denuded Hitler’s attack formations – through difficulties in N Africa and particularly in invasion of Greece. The deployment of German forces to Libya and Greece delayed Barbarossa.
Truth is – if you hear those tapes of Hitler talking to Mannerheim (You Tube) where he expresses horror at finding USSR had 35,000 tanks and a factory with 60,000 workers. The scale of Soviet war output and the ratio of artillery to combat forces (45%) must have been awesome.
Hitler needed the Skoda works to even have a chance of equipping the Wehrmacht but the USSR had factories, disassembled them, moved them and restarted production churning out T-28s and T-34s superior to German tanks not designed for cold or long range
“Hitler talking to Mannerheim (You Tube)” — thank you for the tip, I was not aware of it.
Interesting to hear his natural voice — not what I imagined.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8raDPASvq0
interesting voice? well…but the content and the poor translation are very interesting. Among other points that Mr H makes is that in the period 1939-40 he believed that Germany had only one alternative. When there is only one alternative, and that alternative is violence, then the great risk is that (A) the people you “must” attack might not be as stupid as you hope, they may resist, or worse, get you first, it depends on the breaks. And (B) your only alternative may be an inappropriate alternative, because it is a self-delusion (it is not an alternative, it is instead what is simply going to happen, it is what you shall do, will does not matter, The simple fact is that delusional leaders are about to leave the stage, every time..
In Strategy this is game end.
So the voice clip of H strongly suggests that the nazis’ entire operation was simply dressed-up expediency slathered with gifts from dark forces – in reality an intelop that worked pretty effectively for a while, and then ran into serious difficulties along the fissures (how grateful I am to Clapper for this usage!)
The nazis where founded and supported from the USA to fail. There purpose where to be a reason for the USA ans Britain (the “good guys”) to destroy Germany (“the bad guy”) and then subject the country and Europe – till today. The post-war Germans feels guilty and entire Europe thankful for their “liberator”, the USA, “the great peace an justice bringing nation”, so making the USA more powerful than before war and the morally legitimate leading world power. Truly a demoniac plan which worked quite well. See : https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony_C._Sutton and http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/08/14/hellstorm-the-documentary/ , just connect the dots of all this information.
At one point, General Halder (head of OKH) tried to give Hitler some numbers on Soviet military production, I believe in 1942. To a rational military man, these numbers were scary because they showed that the Soviets were producing tanks and planes and the like at a much faster rate than the Germans.
IIRC, this was one of the earlier recorded (in Halder’s diaries) instances of Hitler flying into a rage and denying reality.
Halder also tried to warn Hitler that his troops were dangerously exposed in Stalingrad. For these acts, Hitler decided that Halder was a ‘defeatist’ and removed him from command in Sept 1942.
The factory was in Kramatorsk in good ol’ Donetsk oblast. What goes around comes around I guess.
Mr C lobbied hard internally to create the terrorbombing campaign of Germany so as to force the nazis to bomb London, thus securing his power base, for a time…as it is said, until 1945
Mr C also had decrypts of the Japanese signal traffic – about 100% in fact, by 1940…and he sorta “forgot” to tell FDR – he set a trap. Trap? Pearl Harbor…
Some might desire to read Betrayal at PH and also the cruise of the lanaki
https://www.amazon.com/BETRAYAL-PEARL-HARBOR-Churchill-Roosevelt/dp/0671708058/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1505729363&sr=1-1&keywords=betrayal+at+pearl+harbor
https://www.amazon.com/Cruise-Lanikai-Incitement-Bluejacket-Books/dp/1557504067
Many say he, Mr C, also did FDR. Did…well, there was definitely a Major Change in Policy, Zuruck, with the elimination of FDR and the compromised Mr T…the First Mr T, not this one… And that says who was/is pushing for what, does it not? The last significant policy shift in us history was the one the occurred with the FDR?HT switcheroo – say it is not so and you are speaking of details, not fundamentals, it would seem.
What precisely people did and said at the celestial level is often available only from those people…nothing in writing…like criminals…but I am, of course, referring to the celestials, who cannot be criminals, can they? And they are so pretty! Are they not?
Dear Saker,
excellent thoughts and summary to show to friends. Thanks a lot.
Best regards,
Marcel
With all due respect, and I mean all due respect, I find it rather shocking to see your acceptance of the allies holocaust story. About Hitler’s extermination of the Jews. And you accept the gas chambers? and the six millions? Well maybe on this issue it is very difficult for you, as a Russian, not to see Hitler and Germans as the satanic demons the West and the Soviet Union concocted together. Why don’t you try out the revisionists – and I do not put that term in inverted commas. Because what you are trying to do for your good American friends is revising their understanding of their country. But at least don’t be guilty of the same naive beliefs vis-a-vis the biggest hoax of the twentieth century. I also know that you do not accept the official story of 9/11. So I suggest that you really go into this German guilt business. I did – and I nearly had a breakdown when I discovered, as a born Jew and Zionist, I had been brought up on lies my entire life. I am no longer Jewish.
Furthermore, all myths have to be broken for us to become fully human and fully responsible adults. Cheers
I find it rather shocking to see your acceptance of the allies holocaust story. About Hitler’s extermination of the Jews. And you accept the gas chambers? and the six millions?
Did I EVER say any such thing?!
Do you even bother to read what I write, really?
This is a typical straw man and I see no reason to reply to it
The Saker
You ask: “Did I EVER say any such thing?!”
Yes, you clearly did: “Oh sure, Hitler considered Jews as parasites which had to be exiled and, later, exterminated and he saw Russians as subhumans which needed to be put to work for the Germanic Master Race and whose intelligentsia also needed to be exterminated.”
It’s there in your article for everybody to read. So it doesn’t even make sense to lie about it.
We have more then one – a band of straw men.
so you can’t tell the difference between
“Hitler considered Jews as parasites which had to be exiled and, later, exterminated and he saw Russians as subhumans which needed to be put to work for the Germanic Master Race and whose intelligentsia also needed to be exterminated.”
and
“About Hitler’s extermination of the Jews. And you accept the gas chambers? and the six millions”?
Then you are an idiot which deserves to be banned from this blog.
The Saker
This is more than straw man argument. This is a sneaky attempt to get you to clearly deny the jewish holocaust and get the ADL or whatever 3 letter agency to pounce on you. Nicely sidestepped. As tensions ratchet up I think you will may get more of this.
Glad you made it back home safe and sound. May the angels watch over you.
(Funny how White Russians are always emigres, not emigrants)
What is wrong about you? Saker gave you everything on a plate, gave you crystal clear wording, links… there is plenty in libraries, documents, youtube, etc…
Saker has an endless belief in human intelligence you prove wrong…
Hi Saker,
” Hitler considered Jews as parasites which had to be exiled and, later, exterminated ”
This, at first glance, may give some the idea that you bought into the holocaust story of gas chambers, etc. I’m sure Dissident was not trolling, just worried about that.
Nice manuscript, will use it,
Cheers!
JC
“Oh sure, Hitler considered Jews as parasites which had to be exiled and, later, exterminated…”
“Or would we also be doubleplusgoodthinking little Nazis, all happy and proud to have defeated the evil Judeo-Bolshevik hordes and the Anglo-Masonic capitalists…”
To use the term “exterminated” indicates that you accept the Allies version of history and maybe that of the Soviet Union.
The “Judeo-Bolshevik” hordes as you put it, represented what is today called globalization and is tied in with international banking and the undermining of sovereignty and national economies. The Anglo-Masonic capitalists, are not merely Anglo, and represent those belonging to secret societies, which still exist and which have been condemned by the Catholic Church for more than two hundred years because they served, and continue to serve, as the promoters of modernity, and individualism and the collapse and destruction of morality as it was traditionally accepted in Christianity. You, as an Orthodox Christian, should appreciate this especially, because Orthodoxy has remained less contaminated that Western Christianity, both Catholicism and Protestantism. The Pussy riots, homosexuality and identity politics all derive from this drive against Christianity, which is also aimed at Islam today.
If one goes back to diplomatic history prior to WWII, and reads some of the crucial texts, it becomes clear that Hitler did not want to “conquer the world” that he did not start WWII, that his attack against the Soviet Union was pre-emptive in nature, and that the huge hideous war between Germany and the Soviet Union was encouraged and cheered upon by the Western Allies.
My point therefore, is that to refer to Nazism as the ultimate evil etc is to use the Anglo/French/Allied view of the world which makes them the “good ones” and Germans the “ultimate, satanic evil”.
I believe that just as 9/11 is an official hoax so too is the Holocaust an official hoax – both serving economic interests – which are extensive and varied.
Otherwise I thank you for your truly exceptional analyses.
well stated… you have been awakened…congratulations
and the six millions?
Did you mean 6 million printed in newspapers since 1915.
See for yourself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paDxxnBDz7M
Note. Above Youtube is blocked in some countries ( I wonder why? )
“So He said to the Jews who had believed Him, “If you continue in My word, you are truly My disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
Well said, but there’s a ***bigger*** picture, a far far bigger picture.
America is Britain II- or Britain is ‘Frankenstein’ and America is Frankenstein’s monster. There was no revolution in America. Leading Brits understood that Britain II was to be built on a brand new model, free from the concept of ‘crown’ control. So leading Brit thinkers arranged a fake ‘revolution’ to launch the USA as a whole new concept on the planet.
The Second Industrial Revolution saw America draw level with the UK. The perfected USA was all ready to participate on Britain’s command in WW1 and WW2. After WW2 we saw the Third Industrial Revolution that projected the USA well ahead of every other nation on the planet.
The Empire of the West is unprecedented in Human History. Only absolute fools dribble nonsense about it ‘failing’. Where it ‘loses’ wars, it does so not because of a lack of power or resources, but a lack of ***will***. But those ‘losses’ were an essential trade-off, for the West was busy conditioning its population in a completely unique direction, and part of that grooming was a anti-war attitude ingrained in the people. For the West was about far far more than ‘war’. Trade and control was a vastly more important mid-term goal.
And now. in the midst of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (that has built up China as a world power), the West is in its final stage of ‘perfection’- the full blown Orwellian control of the population- total surveillance, total propaganda control, total brainwashing of the children (including a subject banned here- but a key plank of Tony Blair’s mind control strategy- ‘green’ is the gift that never stops giving to the demons). Those that watch the Human Race drowning in Orwellian societal mechanisms frequently pretend there is hope by laughably talking about the ‘failures’ of the West. And then, when realism sets in, think that by exposing the evils of the West people will wake up- not a chance.
Look here’s an example. Tony Blair’s ***fabian*** mouthpiece, the Guardian Newspaper, had an article yesterday from a ‘journalist’ invited by the Russians to see their success in Syria. The bile and bias in the article had to be read to be believed. The fake news the ‘journalist’ kept inserting in his commentary to knock the Russian success was just laughably pathetic. Yet millions of people buy this rag and believe every word it prints. Our true message reaches less than 1% by comparison. The demons have the numbers on their side, because they control 99.99% of the mainstream media, and 99% of online pretend indy media. Places like this blog are a literal drop in the ocean. By the way, it was British fabians, in an earlier form, who crafted every aspect of the USA- Tony Blair is the literal King of America, and PNAC an incompetent document attempting to put Blair’s desires into print.
Blair’s Orwellian control methods have spread to ever corner of the globe, especially China and Russia- who both claim a desperate need to control the lives of their populations. An Orwellian nation is either a member of the West or a slave of the West. The Orwellian methods are a perfect degrading mechanism ouside the West or a unifying mechanism in the West.
Recent reports prove that the West’s genocidal war in Syria activated full on war economies in multiple ex-soviet states. Yes, lands on Russia’s borders are full of factories churning out hundreds of billions of dollars worth of war gear because Saudi Arabia et al buy such death dealing kit, at America and Britain’s behest, to ship to their wahhabi chums. But what Russia forgets is that the real plan is to get Russia’s neighbours ready and able to fight ways on Russia’s borders.
If Putin had acted to prevent the Syria war in the first place, their never would have been a market for East Europe war kit in such massive quantities. But Putin waited for the West to firstly ruin Syria (much to Russia’s no.1 regional ally, Israel’s delight). Now Russia’s currently successful campaign in Syria builds a need for more war kit of ever more sophisticated design. Anti-armour and anti-aircraft missile systems in insane quantities at ever lower cost.
You see the West knows Russia has everything but the numbers. Russia’s tiny population condemns it. If multiple wars erupt on Russia’s borders, Russia lacks the man power to fight them. Russia has the kit, and has the tech, but not enough people to deploy.
Britain built Britain II partially to solve the people numbers problem. When Russia gave away all the Soviet Empire that mattered, it lost of ton of very useful people. Naively Russia thought, at the time, that war in Europe was the last thing the EU and NATO wanted. Now Russia has tens of millions of tooled up Russia haters on its borders, armed to the teeth by NATO. Their ‘use’ would not be an ‘official’ NATO war, which Russia would win with nukes if push came to shove, but Syria and Libya style border ‘insurrections’. If Russian ‘hard nuts’ flooded into these conflict regions and beat up the NATO proxies (as they would) more people in the border nations would join the conflict against Russia til the numbers were simply against Russia.
The West ‘wins’ its wars in completely unconventional ways. Look at Germany and Japan after WW2. Both allowed to become rich manufacturing centres of the West. The West is looking back to the twisted sick horrors of germanic and central European conflicts across the last two millenium. Tribal hatreds that turn people into the most brutal killing machines imaginable. And in these ancient centres of tribal hatred, the no.1 employers are the new factories churning out every weapon of war. This is why Tony Blair needed these wars of the last two decades. To get the ‘right’ people willing and able to fight the coming wars. You cannot comprehend how many ‘mercs’ from the new European war grounds fought in Blair’s Middle East wars. And now in the mercs homelands the homelands have full blown war economies.
And the anti-war sentiment of the people’s of the modern West? Tony Blair has reversed that with the pro-war messages blitzed by Hollywood, the papers, the TV channels, the computer games, the books, and the schools. Britain’s schools in particular, since Blair first rose to power, now sell an extreme pro-war message to every child that has the misfortune to be ‘educated’ in them. Britain is the only first world nation that refuses to obey UN resolutions banning child soldiers (don’t believe me? google it!). The people of Canada, Australia, Britain and the UK are now ‘gagging’ for war. Of course the wars they demand are wars where only people on the ‘bad’ side die- in other words Israel style wars of ultimate brutality designed to ‘minimise’ casualties of the West’s uniformed butchers.
Blair has moved the people from ‘anti-war’ to wanting the least fair, least moral wars. The coming West’s wars are wars designed to be won at any cost. How else did you think Blair and co were going to get the people accepting the use of nukes- nukes that “keep our troops safe”?
The people hate Russia cos its easy to simply swallow thie lies of the zionist mainstream media, and ***hard*** to go out and find the truth. And as for getting people to love war- here’s the cleverest trick Blair pulled.
“remember those days when people hated the ‘gays’ and wanted to deny them their Human ‘rights’? Well those same people were anti-war. Being anti-war and hating gays went hand-in-hand. Today, thanks to the work of leaders like me, Tony Blair, people love the gays and realise that all the opinions of the gay-haters of old were wrong and evil. So, thank god and the pope and me, the people of the West now understand that the ‘right’ wars are a good thing, and a citizen willing to kill at the command of me or Clinton or Obama or Trump is the very best kind of citizen.”
You don’t prevent war by loving peace. You prevent war by destroying the war mongers. The war mongers rule the West to such an extrent now, all the major political parties of the West are virulently pro-war. The West isn’t falling, but moving into its finally phase. And most of the people of the West now support this. Putin could act to change the minds of the people of the West- but never has and never will.
And we lose cos too many people on our side say “i just don’t get why all this bad stuff happens- what’s the motivation”. Ultimate Evil is anti-Life. The more pain and death, the more perfect the Evil. At the bottom are the serial killers. At the top are those who hope they can murder the entire Human Race one way or another. You know serial killers exist- but due to some fatal flaw in your comprehension, you cannot accept that likewise monsters exist at the top who want to do the same thing on a planetary scale- even as Demons like Blair give you total proof of this by executing their planning and preparation under your perfect gaze.
I agree with much of what you say, twilight (except for your statements about gay people), in particular your perception of the creation of the United States as Britain II. A thought I have entertained for a long time. I like the idea that the United States is a slightly modified continuation of the British Empire. Thank you for your insightful analysis.
Cheers,
QS
The US with it’s Harvard lackeys creating the oligarchs and other mischief almost killed the Russian economy until Putin turned it around. But recovery takes time as one can’t go buy one off the shelf at Walmart as most Americans think complex problems can be instantly solved. After Afghanistan the Soviet military was no longer an elite fighting force. Putin did not intervene in Syria at the beginning because he couldn’t plus at the time it looked like the Syrians could handle it. Syria started in 2011 and look what the US did to Russia in 2014 after Russia annexed Crimea. Putin personally cut deals around the world, was hailed as a hero in Central and South America, and put Russia on the path of self sufficiency as the economy suffered from the sanctions but nowhere as bad as it could have been if Putin sat back and went oh woe is me. As it is the Russian force in Syria is very small as wars are expensive and Russia does not print money to finance their adventures like the US does. The small Russian force has by far outperformed the large US force but that’s because Russia wants to end the conflict while the US wants to keep the chaos going as they know that if they overthrow Assad at least 2 to 3 more wars would result.
After the war the US could have cared less if every single German died. The worst POW camps with huge numbers of deaths were under US control and only improved when they were turned over to the British and the French. Lots of ink of how the US saved Germany with the Marshall Plan but that didn’t go into effect until 1948 when the US was afraid they were driving the Germans into Stalin’s arms with the way they treated them.
Putin has been playing chess while the US has been playing checkers and has done wonders, especially in Syria and the Donbass, but the way he is portrayed in the US media he is Satan times 10. For example, and this is one of many, when Alleppo was liberated and the Syrians celebrated as shown on the media outside the US, as were the interviews with joyous Syrians, in the Western media none of this was shown and Putin and Assad were said to be intentionally bombing hospitals and schools and were guilty of huge numbers of atrocities and war crimes. With Russia on the rise it has been non stop Russia and Putin bashing for years. Against this backdrop how do you figure Putin can change the minds of the west especially with over a hundred million Trump haters believing their beloved Hillary lost the election due to Russian meddling?
One thing that needs to be cleared up is the Soviet Union declaring war on Japan to grab their assets in Manchuria and Korea. Not. At one of their big 3 confabs, Yalta I believe, it was agreed that within 90 days of the end of the war in Europe the Soviets would go to war with Japan. As the end date drew near the Americans were nervous that Stalin would not do his part. Some would say why did it take so log. Most of the Soviet troops were in Europe and it takes a long time to move armies and their support across the length of a huge country like Soviet Union and then prepare. With many American Generals like Patton wanting to saddle up the Germans and start a war with the Soviets I’m sure they were in no hurry to go east until they saw the Americans sending their troops home.
The US loses wars because in this day and age to win a war one would have to kill everyone in the target country. The Brits gave up their empire because the conflicts and problems with the locals outweighed the benefits. Other countries have seen this and know that by making the occupation too costly the invader will leave. Until Vietnam the US had the perfect thing going by putting puppets in charge, like Somoza in Nicaragua and so many others in the last 200 years in the countries south of its border. The Monroe Doctrine was supposed to be telling all foreigners to stay out so the countries could develop. Reality is it was a declaration that only the US could exploit and enslave these people for the benefit of the US and it’s corporations. It was when the US adopted the failed British model of war and occupation that the troubles started and wars became unwinnable in the long run.
I don’t agree with The Saker for calling the servicemen mercenaries and butchers for the empire and for their efforts. Considering Americans have been propagandized from diapers to death, as one commenter put it, whether by government, the media, or Hollywood they believe they are not only serving America but fighting for a greater good. Although I don’t watch the trash that passes for network TV one gets blasted, especially lately, with the spate of TV shows being advertised of the military doing their thing around the world to keep us safe and combating foreign evil. Troops are even propagandized when in the war zone as are their opponents so they all get down and dirty and do nasty things that are justified because the other guy, be it an American or his enemy, is evil and must be destroyed by any means necessary.
You cleary skipped Sakers Argument about the Nurnberg Trials.
With what you are saying you could also excuse the
Wehrmacht/German Soldiers at World War 2.
Propaganda is never an excuse. Just ask the Victims of those Soldiers, that are just under the influence of Propaganda, if it makes it ok.
“If Russian ‘hard nuts’ flooded into these conflict regions and beat up the NATO proxies (as they would) more people in the border nations would join the conflict against Russia til the numbers were simply against Russia” The numbers will be against Russia no doubt but US/NATO will never be able to defeat Russia even by itself (without China) “twilight” forgets that Europeans and even US soldiers will never be able to stand against an enemy that can fight (and kill) back. Simply because they are not ready to die and they are aware that Russians atr not the same like to fight Iraq, Lybia, etc comfortably dropping bombs or sending drones from long distance without risking their own lifes.
“Say the USA had been successful in not only invading Iraq and Afghanistan, but also in fully pacifying these countries. Say the insurgencies in Iraq and Afghanistan would have been successfully defeated, their economy had bounced back, and democratic regimes put in power: capitalism everywhere, 100 channels on each TV, McDonalds in every Afghan villages, gay pride parades in downtown Kabul, gender-neutral toilets in every mosque, elections every 4 years or so and not a single shot fired, not a single bomb going off? Would that be a “success”?”
YES, yeah call me a mesianic imperialist but the force of progress and modernity is the path of human liberation. As Sartre would say “we are condemmed to be free”. However as you say Saker US imperialist forces will never be able to achieve that, the only true path is ateist communism. Feel free to disscuss if you are willing to refute Heidegger and Hegel
YES, yeah call me a mesianic imperialist
Okay, sure.
You are a messianic imperialist.
Cheers,
The Saker
After the direct fighting against Saddam’s military formations had ended, I shuttered to hear the word “reconstruction” being used.
I grew up in the Deep South, and the history of the “reconstruction” after the American civil war was well known. A long military occupation. Waves of carpetbaggers looking to buy everything for pennies on the dollar and make quick profits.
When I heard the term “reconstruction” being used again, I knew right then and there that helping the Iraq economy to “bounce back” was not in the cards. Modern Yankee carpetbaggers would steal anything that wasn’t nailed down, and while their might be big dreams of reconstruction projects promoted by the economic hitman, in reality corruption would steal most of the money long before anything decent got rebuilt in Iraq.
American propaganda pushes this notion that America leaves free countries with democracy and properous economies in its wake. If you grow up in a place that once suffered under military occupation by Yankee armies, you know it ain’t true. That sort of memory survives for generations.
As I noted I dont believe US (or any capitalist nation by the matter) can provide these results. Only socialist revolutions and socialiat solidarity can provide it. We must blame Capitalism not because its achievements (democracy, progress, laicism, multiculturalism) but its innerent failures (imperialism, slavery, famines, colonization, etc.).
Greetings
Being only in a atheist communism, you are supressing rituality, tradition and the meaning of things. If everything in our society is scientific tought and materialism, we are condemned to just try to live in the void of existence and life itself will lose its meaning. Your posture may sound good but scrath deeper in that philosophy and you will realize that with that, human life will cease to matter at all
Miguelouuu well I have read Sartrean existencialism and I have been reading Hegel recently. Human life can have meaning and sense beyod culture and god if we embrace the human liberty and we understand that only ourselves can give meaning to life. I understand your worry but believe me we can only realize as individuals in the destruction of the lamb mind that Nietzche speaks it about.
One of your best rants.
It flows beautifully and is heavily documented, not an irrational moment in the whole thing.
Shouted out! As it should be to rise above the din of lies and deceptions and propaganda and untruths.
Painful for us Americans. Very painful. As it should be.
Excellent, Saker.
Thanks my friend.
I might be naive, but I yearn for the day when all former imperialists come together and jointly reject imperialism in any and all of its manifestations.
We all have our horror stories in the past and we all have to learn from them.
Kind regards,
The Saker
” the day when all former imperialists come together and jointly reject imperialism in any and all of its manifestations.”
That sums up quite well the populist sentiment in N.Z. which led to the ban imposed on visits to New Zealand, a member of “Five Eyes” , by U.S. nuclear warships.
It was a purely symbolic gesture which had little practical effect ; it was just something that Kiwis, en mass, felt needed to be said.
I am still wondering what important mission Rupert Soames . . yes that Rupert Soames . . . was on, that necessitated his trip to NZ, ostensibly because some naughty boys in a SERCO -run prison were having fights.
It seems that we in NZ are still in “The Club”.
That’s right fb we’re still very much a part the ‘club’ , nz-peasants might have upset ‘master’ a bit with our nuclear free thing but we never left the club – just needed a bit of re-education and now look at us, perhaps one of the most mesmorized of all the empire’s vassals.
I enjoyed seeing a bit of Roger Waters on the propoganda box the other nite tho, perhaps TV1 wud interview the Saker uncut
Great analysis, as always, Saker. You captured quite well the American Zeitgeist. Something we should could keep in mind, however, is another important function of the US regime’s genocidal militarism and embrace of the police state vis a vis the US population. That is the message that if the home population gets any ideas about over-turning the existing order they will be crushed forthwith. It would take a monumental mass movement that is highly disciplined and determined (the likes of which not seen in human history) to take on the US State. Like many boxing fans are saying about Canelo’s chances against GGG tonight, such a mass movement would have to fight the perfect fight.
At RT Max and Stacy frequently and blithely poke fun at clueless, passive Americans but I would ask them if they would be willing to put themselves or their children literally in the line of fire. Talk is, after all, cheap. Its not to say people here should not put it on the line and end the Empire considering we seem to be on the brink of nuclear holocaust. But lets be real. Any move to overturn the Empire from within would result in an immediate blood bath. In recent history we saw faint echoes of that in the destruction of Occupy and, before that in a stronger reaction by the US State, in the total evisceration of the Black Panther Party and murder of students at Kent State.
My overall point here is that though wide swathes of the US population are alienated and discontented with the reigning regime of Capital, they know quite well in the back of their minds that revolt (again, no matter how well organized and militant) means death for them in the thousands if not millions as the regime, like many before, will show no mercy or give any quarter when its survival is at stake. I feel that this should factor into any analysis of the political awareness or consciousness of the US masses. That being said, as Jefferson put it, “the tree of Liberty from time to time has to be watered with the blood of tyrants.”
I hope you don’t mind if I quote you:
“Something we should could keep in mind, however, is another important function of the US regime’s genocidal militarism and embrace of the police state vis a vis the US population. That is the message that if the home population gets any ideas about over-turning the existing order they will be crushed forthwith. It would take a monumental mass movement that is highly disciplined and determined (the likes of which not seen in human history) to take on the US State.”
It’s that mindset I’m trying to dissuade. I propose constant resistance and disfavor for the actions , alleged or fact, of a US Deep State or Secret Government (SG).
My argument lies in the fact of these actions must be carried out to fruition. Aside from the AUMF (more later) of 2001 that has driven nearly all military actions and atrocities in the MENA since its inception, the US Congress has essentially been the hand maiden, its members, the plural, hand maidens to carry out Imperialist or Orwellian orders and burdened the citizenry with their illegality.
I propose that the US citizen remains the Sovereign State, not any elected or unelected overseer. This fact can be exemplified by the outcome of the push to extend Amnesty to millions of illegal aliens in or about 2006. The result of this legislation would have resulted in a captive, and sometimes willing, demography defining a voting bloc loyal to the Socialist leanings of the Democratic Party as it exists now in the US. What was that outcome?
It failed, abandoned by its sponsors in light of the fact that the citizenry rose up and basically told Congressional members they would lose their lucrative gravy train existence in a mass firing if they persisted!
I remember quite well attending a pro Amnesty rally at my State capital. I watched, blankly, as hundreds of attendees were bussed in by well funded organizations. Predominantly Mexican, the passengers each carried small Mexican flags. As they disembarked, each attendee was approached and the Mexican flag hastily replaced with the American, or US flag. I just shook my head. There were upwards of 40,000 people there, the predominance of them pro-Amnesty. Being opposed, I realized we were outnumbered in ratio by the hundreds to one. I marveled at the logistical skills to garner so many attendees. Those who otherwise might have been in opposition stayed away mainly for the perception of political correctness as that propaganda so effectively prevailed.
As it turned, however, that same Congress’ constituents outnumbered their membership by the thousands, and, they were diametrically opposed in the greatest number. Common sense had not entirely been expelled after all. What Herculean effort caused this surprising result?
Typically, a phone call or letter, or perhaps a signature on a petition. No lives lost in historic battle there, no popular songs or legends created, no wounded or disenfranchised. Simply, the Republic ran as it was supposed to.
I’ve seen three opportunities to repeal the AUMF come and go in the last few months, most notably this past week in the Senate, where a motion to add the vote to the NDAA was tabled with out fanfare.
Aside from a general lack of organization, the motion has failed in part due to the perception of an indomitable Deep State that would quite imaginatively rein down misery on any who supported it. At this moment, that perception remains a fantasy, bolstered only by the dramatic assertions of overthink.
” I yearn for the day when all former imperialists come together and jointly reject imperialism ”
Sadly, paradigm shifts don’t work that way Saker. Most of those pushing and causing the horrors of modern Empire building are psychopaths – and they cannot change. Psychopathy is linked to narcissism, and they can never accept that they might be wrong in anything,
; that they have to reject that which they naturally embrace as the best thing for them;
that they are all they need consider.
We have to wait for them to die off, and spend our time teaching the young, by ourselves living a different life, as you and so many of us are doing, in order to give a model for them to see and follow. Russia and China in working together are also doing this.
It will take a couple more generations I fear; however it will happen. Regrettably for us, not in our lifetime. Our job is to lay the ground work for those who come behind us – this you are doing excellently.
Bravo!! What an outstanding essay!!! Enough is most certainly enough!! This is the sort of history and reasoning I tried to impart to my students during my short teaching career. Now we just need to discover a method by which the vast majority of residents within the Outlaw US Empire read this essay and learn the awful truth of their existence and what their tax dollars really support.
Again, I must commend you for this is the best essay you’ve ever produced!
Bravo!!
thank you for your very kind words
frankly, I did not expect the positive response to this letter
all the kind words since I posted it touch me very much
they also keep me hope
Kind regards,
The Saker
For an atheist or agnostic, God is not supreme. The nonbeliever is concerned solely for his personal survival, familial relationships, close friends and the reality of the three dimensional space he lives in. The retention of wealth and material acquisition becomes paramount. He may cast a tithe to the poor for reasons other than for pure compassion, weighing the practical benefit over any sense of ethereal guidance. He is disconnected from spiritual immortality. Thus, it is important for him to justify his existence by accepting historical narratives that fit neatly inside his paradigm so that his conscience is not disturbed and remains clear of any guilt.
If you follow the messengers of faith you know the world is a cauldron of evil swirling about; its tentacles of temptation try to capture you at every moment. Evil hides itself inside the word “live” to claim separation from the dead but it is death, death of the soul. Wickedness tempts man with passions, a snare to entrap us. It creates despicable acts of military conflict and conquest to justify power over the masses by covering itself with the duplicitous veil of doing good. A nonbeliever cannot find God in the corruption of the word “good’ but a believer sees God in the word clearly, when its faithful use serves him.
At my own end time slowly approaches, the reality of corporal life becomes less important. The higher thought centers around my soul and will it survive the pains of my failings in this earthly world. No man can change history, he can redact it to suit his contrivances but in the end, truth is the witness that will judge us all.
“And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.
For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places.
All these are the beginning of sorrows.
Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake.
And then many will be offended, will betray one another, and will hate one another.
Then many false prophets will rise up and deceive many.
And because lawlessness will abound, the love of many will grow cold.
But he who endures to the end shall be saved.”
“And there are others who have acknowledged their faults. They mixed a good work with another that was evil. It may be that Allah will turn to them with compassion. Surely, Allah is Most Forgiving, Merciful.”
Ahem. Atheist over here!
Shall we not rather try to bind people of good will together than trying to divide?
Ahem.
Believer here!
How about you don’t try to tell us how you want us to unite people of good will?
The Saker
By treating others with courtesy and refusing to stereotype, Saker.
“For an atheist or agnostic, God is not supreme.” This is correct. For me, “God” cannot be supreme as I do not believe in any God. However, I have never in my life viewed religious people as stupid or backward or made myself out to be intellectually or morally superior. I am not.
“The nonbeliever is concerned solely for his personal survival, familial relationships, close friends and the reality of the three dimensional space he lives in.” This is simply incorrect. I am, of course, concerned with the survival of my family etc. However, I am also concerned about other people and their safety and happiness.
“The retention of wealth and material acquisition becomes paramount.” Certainly not in my case. I have foregone the money for the simple job of teaching less fortunate students who cannot afford to go to expensive universities. I can assure you this is not lucrative, but I do this for my people and my nation. We desperately need well-educated, thinking, young people.
“He may cast a tithe to the poor for reasons other than for pure compassion, weighing the practical benefit over any sense of ethereal guidance.” Even the Good Samaritan looked for a practical solution. Practicality is part and parcel of compassion. Without a practical component, compassion accomplishes very little.
“He is disconnected from spiritual immortality.” I may not know what “spiritual immorality” means, but I certainly know immorality when I see it.
Strangely enough, I have found that the morality taught by several religions is rooted in eons of human experience. As an example, I completely agree with Moslem people regarding interest. Also, strangely, I have occasion to point Jewish and Christian people to their own holy books in this regard.
As another example, I often have occasion to chide Christian people for not knowing the importance of Damascus in their own tradition and point out the immorality of NOT acting in a practical manner to save this city and its, mostly Moslem, people. (This, or course, goes for all people and all cities but I can also use a paradox to make people think.)
“Thus, it is important for him to justify his existence by accepting historical narratives that fit neatly inside his paradigm so that his conscience is not disturbed and remains clear of any guilt.” I do not know what this means. Perhaps letting you know that my International Law lectures often elicit shocked gasps from my students when I explain the history and context of the topic at hand will be some sort of answer. The shock and horror usually follows the type of information you gave above.
(As an aside: The history of the positive role played by those horrible bellicose Russkies in the development of Humanitarian law and their efforts to prevent war altogether, even today, often have jaws dropping. False historical narrative bites the dust.)
“If you follow the messengers of faith you know the world is a cauldron of evil swirling about; its tentacles of temptation try to capture you at every moment.” I know this without being religious. I know that vice very often presents itself in the robes of virtue. Rabid third-wave feminism being an excellent example.
I may mention that gently talking to some members of the local shul has also opened some eyes and led to profound sadness.
This is enough, I hope, to illustrate what I mean when I say that people of good will should not be divided.
I chip away at the divisions on a daily basis. My efforts are tiny, but there is a moral duty on me to do so.
@my International Law lectures often elicit shocked gasps from my students when I explain the history and context of the topic at hand will be some sort of answer
If your explanations are the same as the ones you offered us, I wonder whether the audience was gasping in shock or just yawning out of boredom at such platitudes. Get real.
Garden Variety,
as the comment from WizOz (Get Real) exemplifies – humanity incorporates infinite arrogance.
I rarely post here, but as a Yank I think its time to reply as if I were a recipient of that essay/letter.
Our society is pre-eminently based on class. Even in our most ancient folk tales tere are no ‘poor’ heroes. Economic problems are never mentioned in our media or our popular culture – as poverty is automatically equated with criminality.
This is indeed a class issue that transcends race. Poor whites are as much ‘ni**ers* as any minority.
If one is going to assign blame for the madness of our empire, the world is just as much to blame as we are. The USSR failed because because giant promises were made by our capitalists to enrich the ruling classses there. And they betrayed their peoples for the proverbial 30 pieces of silver.
It is after all cheaper to buy an empire in pieces at a time rather than invade it militarily.
Post WWII Europe and Japan were an interesting case. We made sure to utterly destroy all industries in the invaded nations, and then the Marshall Plan was set up with an ingenious mechanation: Loan the conquered regions the funds in $USD to rebuild their economies, and have them trade with us in $USD so that there would be forever a demand and need for the $USD – and make their economies vassals of ours.
The IMF was simply an extension of that policy.
I do not think Russians fully understand our cultural mindset. We respect strength, but we admire guile and bravado. Putin is portrayed in our press as a bellicose, and lackluster tyrant devoid of reason. And he does nothing to disprove that analysis, by bringing a chessboard to a gunfight. We can respect a Khruschev, or a Brezhnev, but we fully expect Putin to bow before us, as he has never demonstrated any cajones other than a few pejorative comments, that our media interprets as fear of us. His masterful tactics are lost on our proles. At least Nikki threatened to ‘bury us’. That gained respect here. I like Putin, but I think Zhironovsky would do a better job as far as getting respect . A proper conterpoint to our Orange Julius.
If we cannot get a foot into a newly established Kurdistan, I do believe there will be blowack through a massive rearmament of the Ukraine. The wars *must* go on to keep our economy running. I will rate Putin as a major fail if he permits Kurdistan to claim any parts of Syria. They can have, and I do believe they are entitled to their Iraqi regions. Howeevr, they need to do some serious negotiating with Iran.
As far as religion:
I am a non-theist, in that I believe on the intellectual side in Science, in a positivistic rational manner, and on the emotional end in a pluralistic pantheism – a nonsentient universe as ‘gods’.
Many religions ar nontheistic – buddhism, taoism, confucianism. However this has nothing to do with their codes of morality, or ethics.
Nihilism is independent of religious beliefs, as christianty has a tendency to believe that the most grievous atrocities can be committed against humanity, but as long as there is confession (catholicism) or faith – that salvation is assured. Islam in some areas had a quota of murders of infidels to attain paradise. Judaism, like Islam,and Christianity also condones murder of infidels.
In fairness, I am unfamiliar with the tenets of orthodox christianity, as I have never seen their dogma clearly elucidated – whichmight be helpful in understanding their culture.
That said I certainly believe that as far as nations should be inviolate, so too should be cultures. While there should always be a cosmopolitan culture nation-states should be federalized enough to permit some level of independence or expressions of their cultural traditions. I may not believe in the ideas behind the core of their mythos, but they have achieved a certain ‘life’ of their own through the centuries. While I may believe that christianity began as a pia fraus, I believe that the traditions of Christmas and Easter, as well as the humanistic values acquired by it through the ages do indeed need to be preserved and respected for what they represent.
The point I am trying to get at is not to equate non-believers with hordes of LGBT Bolsheviks looking to burn churches and rape nuns and pious babushkas.
And also never to equate economic marxists with social marxism. Two totally unrelated phenomena.
I would also advise against the comparison of the slaughter in Europe to the destruction of the native americans. While I is certainly comparable, most of us would not be able to grok how the advancement of ‘civilization’ on neolithic tribes who had no concept of land ownership is comparable to pure fratracide on an industral scale. Besides, most were killed not by our guns, but by our diseases.
A better comparison woulde the mass murders committed on the Philipino peoples after the Spanish-American war which was so brutal that the US wound up abandoning its policy of the ‘Constitution follows the flag’ to justify it legally.
The atrocity committed by Santa Anna on his prisoners will never be forgiven in our culture. Davy Crockett is at the core of our ‘American’ culture. Mexico will always be despised for it. Few know or understand that the original Texas Rangers were largely a band of outlaws and criminals on the run from the US marshalls. There were of course exceptions, like Crockett and Bowie. Remember the Alamo.
Bozie
“How about you don’t try to tell us how you want us to unite people of good will?”
I believe the only way to achieve this is to introduce direct democracy in the US (on all levels, including the federal), like in Switzerland.
Initiative & referendum won’t solve all problems, of course, but they procure the citizens with a means to initiate (no, to force) a public debate on ANY subject. Whether you ‘win’ or ‘lose’ in a referendum is of secondary importance – it’s playing the game that matters.
Well, I know, this is not the Cafe, but your words kept my attention and if you don’t mind, managed to put them in verses : (“I can resist everything but temptation” – Oscar Wilde)
Truth
If you follow the messengers of faith, justice and truth,
You know the world is a cauldron of evil swirling about;
Its tentacles of temptation leaves you without comment
Holding your breath, try to capture you at every moment.
Evil hides itself inside the word “live” as poison in bread
Just to claim separation from the putrefaction and dead
But it is death, a black hole
The death of the soul.
Wickedness tempts man with passions, a snare to entrap us.
It creates despicable acts of conflict, conquest in it’s ugly fuss
To justify power over the masses by covering itself as it could
Posing with the duplicitous and sickening veil of doing good.
As my own end time slowly approaches, daily and constant
The reality of corporal life becomes less and less important.
The higher thought centers around my soul and will, unfold
To survive the pains of my failings in this gray earthly world.
No man can change history,
It’s an untouchable mystery,
He can redact it to suit his contrivances, for his self defense
But truth is the witness that will judge us all when all ends.
PTT it is said the road to life is straight and narrow with few finding the way. Most are on the broad and spacious road of least resistance. As most find their happiness by security through conformity. Go along to get along they say. But without boundaries and principles they are sliding to the worst result. But how to be brave enough to stand against them? People are sheep; their consent can be manufactured. Alone we are just a voice in the wilderness waiting for divine intervention. Fortunately there is hope and it seems to come from the East.
Agnostic.
Why should our behavior, ethical or moral standards and our living up to them or failing to do so, be tied to our believe in a superhuman entity? Isn’t the “us believers” versus “them non-believers” an excuse that justifies discrimination and violence as much as any other divide?
Be assured I am no fool believing in a 72 virgins award for a martyr nor in any other reward for that. Rather, I believe that acting in a fair and balanced manner creates heaven on earth. Why wait for it until after death?
@…creates heaven on earth. Why wait for it until after death?
Because the Incarnate God said: ‘My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence’.
You are one of the innumerable examples of people who fool themselves that they know all and should not listen to anybody, but pontificate to everybody:
“For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; 4 And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables” (even if they don’t believe in the 72 virgins). Saint Paul was prescient (2 Timothy 4:3-4).
The incarnate God you believe in is an accident of where you were born in all probability.
Incarnate or otherwise it is just another in the long list of deities and your faith is no more or less than your opinion.
Imagine you had been born in Tehran
Imagine you had different parents and a different school
Imagine you had never internalised the stories daddy told you as a child on his knee
Wishing the certainty of an unknowable future is a fools paradise only.
You (and I) know practically nothing.
You are talking non-sense. ‘Agnosticism’ is the refusal to learn, mental laziness, justification of school dropouts (you can’t learn anything, why bother?)
Well, he was a school dropout. Other than that you can’t be taken seriously:
Throughout his life, Einstein was very consistent and clear about his beliefs regarding personal gods and prayer. In fact, in a 1954 letter he writes, “I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this.”
As if the beliefs of the plagiarist impostor Einstein had any importance.
Oh dear, what about Newton then and your incarnate, er, God:
“Though he outwardly conformed to the church of England, Newton privately was an Arian Christian. He believed Jesus Christ was the Savior of the world, but he did not believe He was very God. Newton believed the Athanasian creed and the doctrine of the Trinity diminished the sovereign dominion of the Almighty and corrupted the purity of the church for centuries. But Newton largely kept these heretical beliefs to himself.”
In fact, Newton was never completely cleared of the suspicion that he was the plagiarist in the contest with Leibniz about the invention of the calculus.
On the other hand, the fundamental flaws of his physics are a result of precisely his heretical rejection of the Incarnation.
The subsequent progresses in physics were based on the theories of Leibniz, who precisely believed in the Incarnation.
It might be a little difficult for an ‘agnostic’ to grasp this.
Oh dear, you don’t appreciate Newton either.
Since it suits your opinion, you do like Leibniz approach though, which was:
“Leibniz proceeds by means of an astonishingly simple reversal of the traditional theistic approach:
since reason cannot demonstrate either the triune nature of God or the Incarnation, it is sufficient
for belief to show that these mysteries are possible (although improbable in light of common ex-perience) insofar as they can be thought without contradiction.”
In a nutshell his construct for belief was, well, his own. The construct was fabricated to justify his opinion.
“the fundamental flaws of his physics”
Whatever they are:
are there any fundamental laws of physics
“The research probes whether the fundamental laws of physics are the same everywhere in the universe. In their new study, the Leicester-led team assesses whether these laws are the same within the hot, dense conditions in the atmosphere of a dying white dwarf star as here on Earth.
Project leader Professor Martin Barstow adds: “This new work will test our understanding of how the Universe works, particularly outside the relatively narrow confines of our planet. We anticipate that our results will challenge current theoretical ideas in cosmology.”
In summary, Leibniz’s approach was his own. It was, nearly certainly, not inspired by any in the long list of imaginary deities.
@Saker
Simply, simply brilliant. Very strong logical reasoning based on high moral principles common to all humanity. It would take a very close-minded or imperialist-minded person not to be persuaded – at least somewhat. Well worth the effort.
thank you for your kind words!
The Saker
“Should I even mention the British “atrocities tally”, … the invention of concentration camps, to the creation of Apartheid … ”
Thank you, Saker. This piece of history is not generally known.
The first, for the information of your readers, was, in the words of Lloyd George, a “war of extermination” for the purpose of cornering the market for diamonds and gold. “Genocide” was the word Nelson Mandela used.
The second, I remind your readers, started in 1947 when South Africa was a “dominion” of “Her Majesty” and the highest court was the Privy Council in London. It suited the British in the context of the cold war. Also remember that Mandela was considered a terrorist by the US until 2008.
“Moral license?” I think not.
Reading this for the third time and going to the links provided in a very rich article, I wondered if the USSR had secret plans to destroy US or other EU nations?
We certainly got into all the archives of the USSR/KGB and I assume GRU. I wonder if anyone came across the world domination plans?
I have never heard of any. Other than Communism ideology from left and right comments. But that was “subversion” or national liberation ideologies.
What about outright war plans?
Interesting question. As far as I know, and there is A LOT I don’t know, and in diametrical opposition to what I believed during the Cold War, I now have to admit that I came to the conclusion that the Soviet posture and strategy during the Cold War was essentially a defensive one. Of course, the military does practice and prepare for a lot of different contingencies, including strategic counter-attacks, but I see no evidence that the Soviets ever planned a war against the West.
I might be mistaken though.
As I said, there is A LOT I don’t know.
Cheers,
The Saker
Well, there was that Bezmenov guy, a Soviet defector who claimed that the moral disintegration of the West was planned for and promoted by the Soviet intelligence services to deliberately weaken and destroy the West in preparation for the final triumph of Marxist Socialism.
But then I’ve also wondered if he may have been acting as a CIA agent to promote cold war conflict; or to deflect blame away from the CIA’s own projects to corrupt and destroy the US anti-war movement through sex, drugs (Timothy Leary and LSD, etc.) and rock and roll (the CIA Laurel Canyon project); or to cover up the CIA’s own programs of mass mind control such as MK-Ultra; or any combination thereof.
Me neither. I think no one except the “Exceptional and Indispensable” nation had such notions/plans. Because they think they are the only Exceptional and Indispensable one – All other nations are not, and thus it’s “OK” to bomb any of them back to the stone age. This is typical mentality of any nation that think itself as Exceptional and Indispensable.
Linking Jews with Russians seems a bit weird, isn’t Russians historically a victim of Jews?
yes.
but history is paradoxical and I was speaking to a Russian and a Jew in the same room
why not use that paradox to make them think?
:-)
The Saker
I intend to read this and I’m sure I’ll enjoy it as I usually do with your writing (Thanks!). But first, as someone who’s been a protester and involved in ‘alternative politics’ in the us for decades, I fully understand your motivation expressed in your intro.
It is “interesting” (as Spock would use the term including the arched eyebrow) to be trying to express alternate views in this country to people who just soak up the propaganda. One tries not to get frustrated with the conversations that sound like just a set of poorly connected sound-bites from CNN substituting for real thought. One realizes the depth of the propaganda at times, especially when for instance you’ve been at a protest of several hundred thousand people and you come home and no one knows about it because it was poorly covered if at all by the propaganda channels people accept as ‘news’. To be listening to and working for a candidate that seems to talk at least a bit of real sense, but to be told over and over again that its worthless to listen to them because they can’t win.
I’ve come to refer to it as life in a propaganda bubble. Its only when you step outside and don’t listen to the propaganda do you realize just how pervasive it is. Since for me its been years since I even watched CNN, I tend to have strange conversations where I have no idea what someone is going on about because I’m the one person in the room who hasn’t been reached by CNN sending out that particular message.
On one hand, it seems like how to break through this and really talk to people (and have them listen) is the challenge of the age.
On the other hand, if I step back and look and listen, the facade is already crumbling. Everyone seems to agree that things are badly wrong. The propaganda can’t cover that up, not any more. Its not Reagan’s Morning in America any more. Now the propaganda seems to aim at just making sure everyone blames everyone else for all the problems. Liberals blame the right, and the right blames liberals. Immigrants and Muslims are of course popular scapegoats as well, at least in some circles. That seems to be the goal of the propaganda these days. Making sure that everyone blames and fights with each other and never unites against the real cause and common enemy.
“What would it take for you to switch sides and join the rest of mankind in what is a struggle for the survival of our species? Or will it take a nuclear winter to open your eyes to the true nature of the Empire you apparently are still supporting against all evidence?”
Put bluntly, Pindos and Euro-trash are evil, rotten filth forever high on vile, corporate mindrot and world plunder. Nazi Germany’s defeat by the Soviet Red Army hoisting the Soviet flag on top of the Reichstag building in the smouldering ruins of Berlin is precisely what needs to be repeated here. Hopefully, this time around, it can be achieved without sacrificing any Russian lives at all.
I’m an Orthodox Christian “Pindo.” Every Orthodox I know either loves, or at least respects and values Russia: both her people and as an abstract idea. Real Christianity (I mean any Orthodox: Greek, Antiochian, ROCOR, whatever) is an exceptionally powerful and efficient antidote to the vile corporate mind rot you mentioned. I’m pretty sure real Islam is also (by which I mean not Saudi-funded and directed). Of course we are a vanishingly small slice of the US population. But please, if you should ever happen to meet an American Orthodox visiting your country (I’m assuming you’re Russian, my apologies if I am incorrect) please give us the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise. We’re not in the RF just to be tourists, and we’re probably not sitting in Burger King either!
Saker, just a clarification about the Soviet invasion of Manchuria. You write that “We can clearly see the same pattern here: the Soviets waited until it was absolutely certain that the USA had defeated the Japanese empire before striking it themselves.”
However, this wikipedia article (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Japanese_War) states that:
· At the Tehran Conference in November 1943, Stalin agreed that the Soviet Union would enter the war against Japan once Nazi Germany was defeated. At the Yalta Conference in February 1945, Stalin agreed to Allied pleas to enter World War II’s Pacific Theater within three months of the end of the war in Europe. […] On 9 May 1945 (Moscow time), Germany surrendered, meaning that if the Soviets were to honour the Yalta agreement, they would need to enter war with Japan by 9 August 1945)
· Although Soviet leader Joseph Stalin had not been told much detail of the Western Allies’ atomic bomb program by Allied governments, by virtue of the timing of the agreements at Tehran and Yalta, and the long term buildup of Soviet forces in the Far East since Tehran, it is clear that news of the attacks on the two cities played no major role in the timing of the Soviet invasion; the date of the invasion was foreshadowed by the Yalta agreement, the date of the German surrender, and the fact that on August 3, Marshal Vasilevsky reported to Stalin that, if necessary, he could attack on the morning of August 5 […]
Thus perhaps, and only perhaps, it was the timing of the atomic bombing that was chosen by the U.S. government to force a prompt Japanese surrender, preventing more territorial gains by the URSS, and not the other way around.
Perhaps.
Interesting, I was not aware of this aspect!
Still, these are political considerations. Militarily speaking, the Soviets did wait until it was clear that Japan was in no condition to win a war before delivering their blow. Even if we take into account a Soviet obligation to wait for a German defeat, could they not have waited longer, a couple of weeks or months, before striking? Seems to me that they could. Yet they chose to strike right when the Japanese morale was at it lowest (which is the main reason why the Kwantung Army folded the way it did: the Soviets exploited that low morale mercilessly. Read Glantz about that).
As for Stalin, I think that it is clear that he new about the US nuclear bomb. He just did not know whether it would work and how effectively it would.
Did the Americans plan their strikes to prevent the Soviets from grabbing too much land from Japan? I don’t know, but this is an interesting theory well worth exploring.
Anyway, thanks a lot for a very interesting comment!
Cheers,
The Saker
To comment on the comment, the USSR promised to intervene against Japan three months after the conclusion of the war in Europe. Which, if memory serves me right, they did with Swiss timing precision. It is usually believed that the Japanese surrendered because of the atomic bombs. But another tenable school of thought maintains that all cities of 30,000 people or more had already been bombed to destruction, and yet the Japanese took it stoically and kept going, so to speak.
What the Japanese government feared was an occupation of Japan by the Russians who were already in Hokkaido. If I remember correctly, the decision to surrender was taken before the second Nagasaki bomb was launched.
I see that Serg essentially confirms this interpretation.
Just to confirm comment.
Planning of Manchurian operation went long, logistical problems to prepare and difficult terrain.
So dates where merely coincidence.
In fact it was much easier to give order to one aircraft with bomb compare to make adjust speed of movement one million man of soviet army involved in operation..
se documentary here.. (somewhere in Russian I saw documentary how they went with tanks and artillery across mountains – unbelievable, it was like Kutuzov going over Alps in modern version )
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBuMDG2TvcY&t=23m25s
The Japanese empire was already barely standing by the time Germany surrendered and was trying to find ways to surrender with dignity. They were afraid of a Soviet invasion. The two bombs were entirely and completely unnecessary and just killed hundreds of thousands for no reason, with 0 strategic gain, they were dropped to feed Trumans inferiority complex. He was a tiny little creature, he wore thick glasses and was bullied as a child. His father though, wanted a tough guy as a son and raised him to be a wannabe hardass. It was this insignificant little nothing who insulted Molotov beyond belief and laid the groundwork for a new cold war, based on his own ignorance and false information. He accused the Soviets of not complying with previous agreements and barked at Molotov because of it, while the Soviets were not only complying with all agreements, they were doing so more than the Americans. He later bragged about it by saying “I gave him one on the chin.”
There is a lot of detail I left out and yet more I have yet to learn, but this is the gist of it, the bombs were dropped because Truman was bullied as a child, not for any military, political or any other reason. It was the Soviet invasion which finished off the Japanese empire, because the Soviets were in reach of conquering the entire country, a few bombs, no matter how big, were not.
Serg: I discovered this the other day and it is so interesting I will pass it on to you–Washington University School of Medicine Oral History project , Transcript, Brigadier General Crawford F. Sams, 1979. Gen. Sams had a long military career and was in Japan postwar helping to attend to the monumental nutritional needs of the starving population. His observations about the atomic bombs were most revealing and include statements such as “When I came back to this country, I was appalled, from a military standpoint, to find that our major planners in the War Dept. were using their own propaganda, (claiming) 100 thousand deaths (at Hiroshima)…..there never were 100 thousand people who died…..actually the atomic bomb was a poor killer…..you don’t hear much about the effects of Nagasaki because actually it was pretty ineffective….the effects were very limited as far as the fire spread and all that stuff…..we’re still paying for that hysteria following the atomic bomb, which is deliberately blown up for a very good reason…” For some time I’ve been studying the inconsistencies and lies in the story of the atomic bombings. I now realize that August 1945 was right on par with September 2001 regarding the awful lies and deceptions that were being cooked up, and this Agenda to Wreck Things was designed to reach far into the future. One of the main results of the Aftermath of the war in the Pacific was to close off much of East Asia to outside Christian evangelism, but the endurance of the churches (for example, in China) is an amazing story. Right now, a war on the Korean Peninsula will cause the deaths of many of the Christians in South Korea (one-third of the population). In spite of the repressiveness in the North, some estimates place the number of Christians there at approximately a third of a million! Look at what the consequences of the war in Iraq ended up doing to much of the Christian population there….. Was it George Orwell who wrote “he who controls the past controls the future” ? ?
@ Anonymous
Thanks for highlighting the Saker’s error concerning the timing of the Soviets’ declaration of war on Japan.
It is widely agreed among WWII historians and participating actors of those events that one of the items of the Yalta Conference was the opening of the Soviet front against Japan. For strategic and tactical reasons the Soviets’ effort was against Nazi Germany (the invader) not against Japan, with whom Moscow had signed a non-aggression treaty, and the Japanese had respected that treaty. Stalin was averse to the idea of declaring war on Japan but, for the sake of anti-Nazi unity, finally agreed to start military operations against the Japanese 3 months after Germany’s surrender. Three months was the time his military commanders needed to move the bulk of the troops to the Far East. Therefore, the Saker is misinformed about this important aspect of WWII by attributing to the Soviets the very same reasons why the US entered the war in Europe: to prevent a single-hand Soviet victory against Nazi Germany and share the winners spoils, among other things such as occupation of a war-exhausted Europe. Compared to the capitalist leaders, Stalin was an honourable man who, as promised, moved his armies to strike at Japan exactly 3 months after Germany’s surrender. Perhaps, had he known what they had in mind for the USSR as soon as the war was over, he would instead move his armies further west and save the world from the scourge of NATO.
It is indeed an interesting perspective. We may only speculate further, taking into consideration the existence of the plans for Operation Unthinkable formulated by June ’45, of which I very much doubt that Stalin was unaware (as of the underlying duplicity of the Allies). Stalin acted quickly in order to prevent the capitulation of the Kwantung Army to the Americans which would have allowed them to take a foothold in Manchuria.
Perhaps the Soviet Army should have occupied the whole of the Korean Peninsula.
It’s one of those mysteries of war why the Soviets did not occupy the whole Korean Peninsula. Another one is why Hitler saved the BEF from annihilation at Dunkirk. Stalin obviously did not contemplate the occupation of Korea as justifiable once the Japanese had surrendered, perhaps believing that the Korean Liberation Army would assume power and declare independence. Instead, the US invaded on the 9th September and installed its puppet Syngman Rhee as leader.
The rebellion of the 1960’s realized that they had to try to build an entire “counter-culture” which got people out of the mainstream propagand and let them look at the world independently. And of course, the term “de-programming” began by referring to people who kidnapped people who’d left for the counter-culture and then re-indoctrinated them back into the mainstream life.
But to really understand and see what is going on, it takes that step of stepping entirely outside the dominant culture to see it for what it really is.
To me, it seemed like the first step of pulling someone out of the dominant culture is to show them and prove to them that what they’ve been taught in one area is completely false and wrong. If you can succeed in that, then they begin to question everything else.
And of course, I’ve seen in my lifetime a massive propaganda war against that counter-culture that once existed in America. I’d be curious if someone said the word “Hippie” to them, how many people instantly think of a negative thought. The power of propaganda.
When I hear the American propaganda call that says we must “Support our Troops!”, my reply is whether or not if I was alive in Berlin in 1939, should I still have supported ‘our’ troops? If I lived in Moscow during the Prague Spring, would I still be required to “support our troops?” Am I always just to support the military whereever I am whenever the Generals say I’m supposed to stand and salute?
Americans tend to just shake their heads and not know what to say to such a thought. Except of course for the ones who get really angry when confronted by a thought different from what their TV has told them to think.
When I hear the American propaganda call that says we must “Support our Troops!”, my reply is whether or not if I was alive in Berlin in 1939, should I still have supported ‘our’ troops? If I lived in Moscow during the Prague Spring, would I still be required to “support our troops?”
That is exactly the kind of questioning which I hope my friends will engage in! And sometimes “our” troops DO deserve our support. But never by knee-jerk reaction, never because “my country – right or wrong”.
Let’s support “our” troops IF and WHEN they deserve that support.
Cheers,
The Saker
Most Americans know very little history.
In high school, my generation was required to take one year of a course called American history. This featured reading badly written textbooks that really just gave some names and some dates that were to be memorized before the next test.
After that, the history that most Americans think they know is the history presented in movies, and sometimes on TV.
Since modern war movies are 100% propaganda, that’s a really sad thought.
BTW, the UK paper “The Independent” just did a big story on how much influence the Pentagon and the CIA have on American movies and TV. Its more than most people think. https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/hollywood-cia-washington-dc-films-fbi-24-intervening-close-relationship-a7918191.html
“BTW, the UK paper “The Independent” just did a big story on how much influence the Pentagon and the CIA have on American movies and TV.”
Do you think that’s only in the USA?
The last years a lot about that was told by German journalist Udo Ulfkotte. He knew he was termanally ill, and decided to speak the truth and accepted the consequenses. Udo Ulfkotte had been (he already died, unfortunately) the chief editor of the ‘Frankfurter Allgemeine’, a high standard German newspaper.
A few years ago he published the book ‘Gekaufte Journalisten’ (bought journalists), in which he describes from first hand how news is delivered by the CIA, journalists are bought to write exclusively for them, and unwanted news is suppressed.
In Germany the book is a bestseller, despite completely denying of it by the MSM.
The book was translated into English, but is suppressed for publishing in the USA. Apparently TPTB don’t want the public to read that they are fooled.
Who would have thought that.
Cheers, Rob
Saker
I think you forgot one more thing in addition to that 7 bullet rhetoric of about 70% of Americans. I’ve heard it so many times. I’d like to add it, if you don’t mind.
8- We Americans are fed up being the policeman of the world. Everyone calls us to save them. :)
8- We Americans are fed up being the policeman of the world. Everyone calls us to save them. :)
My feeling is that most Americans ARE fed up with overseas military operations.
But do most Americans really believe that everybody out there constantly demands help from Uncle Sam?
I doubt it. If only because the exact zero gratitude shown by the “assisted” nations…
Cheers!
We Kiwis told them that we did not want their “help”, with anything, especially since we were denied access for our dairy products, our main export. They took it rather badly at first.
No country needs a friend like the USA.
So …. put political pressure on your politicians to stop it …….
Can you give a list of nations or people who have asked for America to come and ‘save them’
Perhaps you could publish it here ….
I will be interested to see if: first, you can, and second, what the response will be
I suspect it is not as clear cut as you seem to think, even WWII
The US is not the “policeman” of the world, this is pure propaganda.
By using the term police, which for the vast majority of people in the western world is a good word, they create the illusion of good vs. evil, the law vs. the criminal, which is complete nonsense.
Police is, in this context, a propaganda term. Police is necessary, police fights crime, crime is bad, so police who fights crime is good, we like police, police protects us etc. … and so the illegal wars of aggression, which as the Saker already pointed out is the worst kind of war crime there is, disappear into a pre-indoctrinated narrative of good vs. evil by branding the US empire a “police” force and whoever it chooses to attack as criminals.
Please don’t use that term to describe the US empire. It could not be further from reality and just reinforces the empire’s narrative.
To my ear, American born and raised, the talk I hear about America being an ‘exceptional people’ that must rule the world sounds almost identical to the German talk about being the ‘master race’ that must rule the world.
The semantics are a bit different, dancing around the fact that America can not be considered racially pure due to its history as an immigrant melting pot, thus the rallying cry is a bit different.
But the “must rule the world” part is certainly identical.
And no real surprise since much of the American industrialists and bankers and ruling class all supported Hitler. Not only was the Charles Lindburgh holding large pro-Hitler rallies in the US, but if you read the history of people like Henry Ford and Prescott Bush you’ll find the stories of how Americans right wing supported Hitler in the 1930’s. In 1943, the company for which Prescott Bush was a director was served with a Justice Dept demand that they stop aiding the enemy.
It can happen here. Not an original thought, since American novelist Sinclair Lewis wrote a book in 1935 called “It Can’t Happen Here”. That’s the source of the famous line (in some circles) that “when fascism comes to America, it will come wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”
To my ear, American born and raised, the talk I hear about America being an ‘exceptional people’ that must rule the world sounds almost identical to the German talk about being the ‘master race’ that must rule the world.
It IS the exact same thing. Or the Communist “internationalist duty” lead by the “vanguard of the people”, aka the Party.
I always cringe when I hear that salvation will come from Russia (an often heard theory nowadays, from Russians and, paradoxically, from recovering Papists).
All these ideologies are messianic in nature and in their assumptions.
And messianism is really, really, a dangerous thing.
BTW – from a theological point of view, messianism (as opposed to the one and only Messiah sent by God) is a form of paganism in the form of a self-worshiping cult.
Cheers
The Saker
very valuable points. messianic/chiliastic halucinations of the cromwellian, jacobin, soviet, nazi, zionist or yankee type are all signature of late desperate civilisations trying to convince themselves of non existing life reserves – and the possibility of full human detachment / autonomy from the divine: eritis sicut deus. what saker calls a self-worshipping cult, basically all these are flavors of the same principle.
if we consider spenglers vision of russia as the only remaining nascent organism trying to find its form and definition, i do think it makes sense to expect something new and unprecedented coming out of the soulsearching of that deeply gifted people.not in the short or medium term, where sheer survival on the messianic battlefield, defense and selfpreservation against their nonstop demonic attacks, is the priority, not as a sudden deus ex machina, but once the dust has settled and those dominant late vessel-civilisations revert to their near-death slumber and decadence, in the form of now hard to imagine burst of creative building forces, of which we might have witnessed some faint sparks with putins reign.
but who knows? certainly the messianic drive always ends in desaster, destruction and hell on earth.
true eschatology that readjusts the empirical and transcendental realities might show us ways and paths out of this closed labyrinth and those peoples that nourish such mindset can help find and determine the hidden exits.
regards,
viktor
Salvation can come only from the Saviour, but He did not come to save the world:
“These words spake Jesus, and lifted up his eyes to heaven, and said, Father, the hour is come; glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee: 2 As thou hast given him power over all flesh, that he should give eternal life to as many as thou hast given him. 3 And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent… 9 I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine. 10 And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them”
Thank you. But we can change only ourself. Not other human beings.
But by being changed, that is decontioned from society’s common denominators, we start radiating harmonic vibes that others are attracted too, naturally.
While I don’t disagree with the thrust of the letter, it seems to loose credibility with the idea that America didn’t “enter the war” until a year after Stalingrad. Maybe what you mean to say is that D-Day didn’t not occur until a year after Stalingrad, but America entered the war in 1941, after pearl harbor, and the Nazis were not defeated in Stalingrad until 1943.
This may seem a minor quibble, but it is traumatic for people to break through propaganda and see the world as it is. At the point just before they break through they may use any means to dim the light shining through the darkness of propaganda. This is a psychological defense mechanism, after all who wants to admit they were played for a fool. People on the edge may thus cling to the misstatement of fact and use it to dismiss the rest of the points made, however valid they may be.
The cowboys entered the war in December 7 1941 by insistent needs and pleas from the brits like poor Churchill and btw by the backdoor of the Pacific.
AFTER luring, attracting and deceiving Japan into war direct with the west.
And in 1942 washington already HAD SOLID evidences of how profitable war might be.
AND the obvious occurred: the brave cowboys only entered war when the soviets had broken the main horns of little Adolf. When it was save, profitable and glorious to draw the 45 colt from the waist.
mothwhoflysbackwards you aptly captured another angle to a comment I posted earlier about how any mass movement against the rule of the US Regime would be met with unbridled force. The US population is indeed fed up with Empire as the costs to them have become unbearable. But they know on one hand, as you explained, ” it is traumatic for people to break through propaganda and see the world as it is. At the point just before they break through they may use any means to dim the light shining through the darkness of propaganda. This is a psychological defense mechanism, after all who wants to admit they were played for a fool.” Then, on the other hand, even if such an admission is finally arrived at, what is going to be done about the realization that everything you believed about your country is a lie? Revolt, may very well lead to a painful death so it is better to remain blissfully ignorant and conformist.
I think this problem of cognitive dissonance (not wanting to have your world shattered by a painful truth and being forced to remake one’s world) is what bedevils the 9/11 Truth movement as it did or does Saker. For me, once I did enough research into 9/11 and learned the truth, I knew that nothing short of the total, and I do mean total, breaking down and reconfiguration of US society would do. As a person of color, and thus always having existed in the lower rungs of US society, it was hardly the blow to my psyche that it would be to the folks addressed by the Saker in his piece. To me it was like ‘it figures’. To the average White denizen, though I stress not all, accepting everything Saker discussed would be no different for them psychologically than the harrowing images we saw on 9/11 of people jumping from the burning towers to their death. As it says somewhere in the bible, a spiritual death may be worse than physical death. I wish the Saker luck but getting through to the US masses, even if his message is able to get through the bull horn of the mass media and, now, the outright censorship by the likes of google and facebook, is going to be the tallest of order. Something big that cannot be ignored and/or explained away has to happen and in such a way that the US masses have no choice but to see the forest for the trees and act in unison to kill the Empire. Hopefully, the big wake-up call doesn’t involve a huge BOOM.
Thank you for the interesting reply.
I have noticed there are two kinds of reactions by people who are breaking free from propaganda. Some, as they get closer to the truth, act like magnets that are being brought together positive to negative, they are drawn to the truth, others act like magnets where the same poles come together — the closer they get the more they are driven apart. The idea you have (expressed in the reply and your original comment) is one I never thought of, but it makes a lot of sense. Many people may reject the truth because of the obligations that truth imposes on them are too heavy a burden to carry. This is especially
true in regards to 9-11.
Maybe I never thought of your point because I tend to see empires collapsing of their own weight as opposed to being over thrown from with in, yet your point is a great reason for people to resist the truth.
You are also right that people (such as people of color) who already have reasons to be cynical about America are more likely to see through propaganda.
I have found it is best to start people small. Recall the coverage of the “peaceful protests” in Kiev, I was watching (Diane Sawyer) with one of my friends and while she was going on about the peaceful protests the film in the background was showing protests that were anything but peaceful. This started to open my friends eyes to the propaganda, but it is “small” in the sense he didn’t have long term buy into to the narrative (less feeling like a fool when admitting the protests were not peaceful) and that realization in itself doesn’t impose any dangerous obligations.
Since then he has become much more resistant to other propaganda narratives. I have been cynical since the distorted coverage regarding Yugoslavia, but note my conclusion didn’t make me feel like a fool (as i had never bought in) and does not really impose dangerous obligations.
Once people start to reject small obvious lies, that do not impose too much cognitive dissonance, they find it easier to reject the big over arching lies. As somebody who is fascinated by the process of awakening (and the resistance people have to it) I want to thank you again for offering another good reason for that resistance — it is because they fear the obligations.
While I don’t disagree with the thrust of the letter, it seems to loose credibility with the idea that America didn’t “enter the war” until a year after Stalingrad. Maybe what you mean to say is that D-Day didn’t not occur until a year after Stalingrad, but America entered the war in 1941, after pearl harbor, and the Nazis were not defeated in Stalingrad until 1943.
Pearl Harbor had exactly ZERO impact on Europe. Zero. The Americans entered the war in the Pacific after Pearl Harbor, but they entered the war against Nazi Germany on D-Day. Not a minute before.
The Saker
The Americans were active in North Africa and Italy throughout the last part of 1942 and throughout 1943, and were in the process of perfecting their terror bombing campaign that drew the bulk of the Nazi’s best weapon against the Russian T-34 tanks away from the Russian front, the 88 mm Anti-Aircraft gun which happened to be the only German gun in quantity that could consistently defeat the armor of the T-34.
But yes, these actions paled by comparison to Stalingrad and Kursk, and the only American actions that began to approach the scale of those battles did not actually start until D-Day.
Saker, don’t you think Generalfeldmarshal Kesselring would disagree? A significant portion of the Wehrmacht (Army Group C) was tied down in Italy, and the US Army suffered significant casualties over the course of the campaign.
with capture of mail steamer in far east by German raider ship “raider C” (British designation) in 1940 the secret report detailing the reasons and facts that the the Brits could not hold their “fortresses” there was read by the Germans, with that event the process began by which Yamamoto was persuaded to do PH, as he would not need to split his fleet, but could operate freely with the main force. Churchill then knew about these facts, and concealed them from FDR and US navy, and so it went.
Winnie was a thug and a drunk, people say, but his history indicates a terrible thirst and cunning as well.
PH, I believe, did have effect in Europe, but in secondary ways…for example, as Mr C famously stated, he spoke to FDR in a seductive method, until PH. After PH he dealt with FDR another way…as he said it, he spoke differently once he’d got the object of his lust safely into his harem.
Harem. Right. That was the term…but the two had entirely different plans for empire post war…so so the new “wife” had to go….
ring up MI-6
Let’s try to answer these Pindo assertions one by one, shall we:
The USA needs a military.
Correct. Few peoples of this world would feed an insatiable parasite without being subjected to massive coercion.
One of the reasons why the USA needs a military are regimes like the North Korean one
Sure, but do keep in mind here that regardless of who’s in charge in Pyongyang (or anywhere else), it’s still the previous assertion which applies: The global majority has to be cowed by overwhelming violence to be of any use to an insatiable parasite. But if a foreign government doesn’t comply with US demands, then the problem becomes even more urgent.
The USA has a right to intervene outside its borders on
a) pragmatic
and
b) moral grounds
The “morale” and “pragmatism” of a full-blown parasite dependent on other peoples’ natural resources and labour output for its very survival can readily be imagined.
During WWII the USA “saved Europe” and acquired a moral right to “protect” other friends and allies
Unnecessarily ambitious assertion. Most fascist regimes propped up by the US around the world couldn’t possibly care less about what took place in Europe over 70 years ago. They welcome their Zionazi protectors without any WW2 drivel; believe me.
The Allies (USSR-US-UK) were morally superior to the Nazis
Wrong: The Soviets were morally superior to the Nazis. Anglo-American imperialism is what Nazi Germany emulated at the expense of the Slavic peoples in general and the Russians in particular.
The Americans brought peace, prosperity and freedom to Europe.
For as long as the USSR existed, the US did share its stolen wealth quite handsomely with its European kith and kin. That time is long gone, however. Today the overall picture is austerity, lawlessness, and overwhelming social rot.
Yes, mistakes were made, but this is hardly a reason to forsake the right to intervene
Correct. Without the right to intervene, the living standards of the beneficiaries of imperialism would drop enormously as their ways of living would be forcibly brought in equilibrium with the rest of the planet.
Shivers……….Well done Saker. Well done.
I’ve read all of the 49 comments, and I feel obliged to respond:
CONSEQUENCES, yes that is what makes Americans/Westerners
changed their imperialistic ways.
CONSEQUENCES like being drafted and getting killed in Vietnam is what made
the Americans be anti-war in the 70s (that’s why the US has a professional Army now).
CONSEQUENCES like financial ruin is what makes the Trump-voters (‘deplorables’)
demand the US involvements abroad be stopped. Not their good heart,
or moral standings, or (fake) Christian belief. No. CONSEQUENCES like financial ruin.
They are unsatisfied with the slice of the Empire’s loot they are getting.
CONSEQUENCES like fear that stems from knowing that any more of US bullying Russia
might lead to nuclear war killing all of you indiscriminately. Most of the Western commenters
here on this site seek redemption, thinking if they contribute few bucks to Saker and express
their support to Russian people/cause, they redeem themselves and will evade their faith.
And no, I don’t accept EXCUSES like “it is propaganda”, “this and that…” blaming
anyone and anything else, just never accepting their own RESPONSIBILITY.
It is your CHOICE to believe propaganda or not, noone else made you do it.
So ultimately it is your DECISION.
For Saker,
you can write long letters, short letters, use any rational explanation and truthful fact,
but nothing will change your friends stand, unless they feel the CONSEQUENCES.
Some might feel the financial pain, some might loose their loved ones in US wars abroad,
some might be turned to ashes by a Topol-M. Until then, good luck trying to turn them.
“ The Paradoxical Commandments
People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.
Love them anyway.
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives.
Do good anyway.
If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.
Succeed anyway.
The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow.
Do good anyway.
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable.
Be honest and frank anyway.
The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds.
Think big anyway.
People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs.
Fight for a few underdogs anyway.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight.
Build anyway.
People really need help but may attack you if you do help them.
Help people anyway.
Give the world the best you have and you’ll get kicked in the teeth.
Give the world the best you have anyway.”
― Kent M. Keith, The Silent Revolution: Dynamic Leadership in the Student Council
please do not re-post other people’s thought or writings, at least not without you own contribution or commentary
the mods should have intercepted this post
I’m gonna do the devil’s advocate here and say that it’s within human reason that Saker’s friends may conceive that “success” part indeed as a success. MacDonalds to eat, gender-neutral toilettes and such… What’s not to like? In fact, an argument could be made that being killers of civilizations is still better than being slaughters of men. And Saker’s friends may think that it’s just right and appropriate that the rest of the world gets his share of MacDonalds, gay prides, and generally forgets where they come from. They may think it’s just what is needed, since it happened to them in the first place. They forgot the poly-genocide, forgot any roots they had; yet they think they live comfortably. So by forgetting, the rest of the world could, as well.
Of course, the big question is… But why bother? why impose such a thing? Why move war, pardon, “intervention” to make these change happen. And, again doing the devil’s advocate, the friends may reply: because we like the status quo, and we disagree with Saker’s realization that every empire is bad. We actually have a very blurred idea of what an empire is and a nation is: and why the empire is so bad, while a single country’s power, or an ancient civilization (which exercises power on whoever borns unto it) should be good?
These friends may finally conclude: see Saker, the current Empire is ours, and we don’t think at all it’s such a bad deal for the world. We live comfortably in it, actually. We also think that Empire might be a necessary evil; or perhaps we think that there’s no such thing as void in reality, and one empire who crumbles gets replaced by another one. Now: the one you are rooting to see in the dust, happens to be ours. And we happen to think it suits us fine. You picture the resistants to the empire as simple non-invading nations, but once we crumble down, their egemony will inevitably rise up. Given this, no hard feelings Saker: we’re still friends but we sincerely hope that everything you’re so anxious to see won’t be witnessed by our sons nor by their sons. We will do everything in our power to prevent the tide.
I suppose that’s what these friends would say.
Brilliant!
One thing that the Saker did not mention in this post is the fact that after WWII, the US can afford to be “magnanimous” to the Europeans. Why? because the production capacity of Whole of Europe had been completely destroyed, leaving USA as the only Healthy Productive Nation. Not only that, 100s, if not 1000s of good European Scientists and Engineers that used to work for the Nazis were then transferred to good old USA in “Operation Paperclip” – which advanced the technology prowess of the USA by Leaps and Bounds (where do you think the best Rocket scientists of the US came from during the post WWII era, home grown? really ? check out Operation Paperclip).
Dear Saker,
I’ll curse the day when the powers that be take down your site.
In the midst of near universal deceit, you stand out as one of the very best commentators on Russia, the Empire and world events I have come across in my life. I say that without flattery or hyperbole. I have a PhD from a prestigious school.
Absent a deus ex machina, there is no hope, unfortunately, for people in America to overthrow our narcissistic, tribal and reckless Establishment. Not enough people in the know; not enough money; not the resources the other side has.
My only hope, after the next big cataclysm settles, is that the Empire’s intelligentsia, ideologues and profiteers will by then lose the insidious unity that makes them so strong, and thereby lose the means to impose their Procrustean vision on the good men and women of the world.
May you and your family survive the next Big War(s) and assaults on human dignity and freedom. It’s only going to get worse before it gets better, if it ever does. My wife and I have already personally made plans to leave the United States by the end of this year.
Deus vobiscum,
QS
Ave Quintus Sertorious, some of your countrymen think that NZ is a desirable destination, but in my view the tentacles reach well down into the Southern Ocean.
One hopes that we few here are not a military target, but our economic vulnerability may well be exposed if the events that you anticipate arrive in short order.
I am a New Zealander and we are firmly controlled by America. Corruption and Fear is what runs the world today.
I often speak of these issues to ex friends and ex colleagues and predominantly the response is……..if i like Russia so much, Fuk off and go live there, you are not wanted here.
There is no truth any more only tribal hatred, i came to the conclusion a long time ago that we in the West are not worth saving.
I’ll curse the day when the powers that be take down your site.
Thanks! They might. But I, and a lot of other good people besides me, will make that as hard for the bad guys as possible.
But yeah, that is a risk.
And the day they bring me down I at least will have to consolation to know that I did my best to resist.
What else can a man do?
Hugs and cheers,
The Saker
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=avRDCP-Z92Q
What else can a man do?
Share nice music while it all goes down.
“Keep a smile on your lips, and a song in your heart.”
– Phineas Freak.
Gilbert Shelton based Phineas Freak on our old “Austin Hippy” friend Houston White, who established the Vulcan Gas Company; he is alive and well. Fat Freddy was Charlie Pritchard, recently deceased, guitarist for Conquerro, and Freewheelin Frank was Gary Scanlin.
Wow. This is by far the best piece I have ever read here.
For starters, Saker manages to avoid being nasty to those who disagree with him. That alone makes it a sparkling piece of writing from Mr. Nasty. Also, it’s not a blatant piece of shill work for Putin. That too makes it an exceptional excretion from the Shiller. This wondrous piece of writing even – almost – manages to avoid exhibiting the nauseating stench of Saker’s apparent homophobia. Of course, more than a whiff does sneak out, but kudos for trying, Saker. The streak of homophobia in your writing is totally unnecessary and also very mean.
Beyond all that, the force of truth in this piece is powerful and desperately needed. Even the nicest and most thoughtful people I know are, with few exceptions, are deeply committed to the notions exceptionalism (America is so good it is ‘necessary’) so eloquently flaunted by Obama just recently. But how can this myth of goodness be maintained even in the minds of seemingly good and kind people? How can genocide and land theft on a colossal scale be dismissed as a ‘mistake’? How can the EQUALLY horrific crime against humanity of slavery – which we ramped up when the rest of the world was finally abandoning it! – also be dismissed as a mistake and as something we fixed and put behind us? How can the nearly equally awful crimes of Jim Crow and now the New Jim Crow (with the prison system acting as the new plantation) be dismissed as ‘mistakes’?!!!! How can the ruthless subjugation of damn near the entire planet at this point be dismissed as a ‘mistake’, or as mere lefty agitprop (after all, the New York Times says bad things were only done decades ago and were just mistakes)? How can the return of Gilded Era levels of economic inequality in the US be hailed as ‘incremental progress’?! One can go on and on. As far as I can tell, absolutely nothing will wake these ‘good, kind, thoughtful’ folks up. Nothing.
A nation of people that can accept Nagasaki and Hiroshima as ‘the decent thing to do’, or even as “a mistake” is unredeemable. Already that nation of people is ready to back a nuclear assault on North Korea!!! The Iraq War was America’s last chance. If that didn’t wake folks up to the true nature of their country, nothing will. And it didn’t. Good, kind, thoughtful folks just dismissed the Iraq War as a ‘mistake’ that was fixed when we elected Obama, who went on to do Syria, but that was partly a mistake and partly lefty agit-prop and besides, incremental progress, incremental progress, incremental progress….
As an American, who has tried to communicate with my fellow Americans for a long time, about these issues, I recognize that there is no hope. Not only are we past the point of no return in America, but real hard core censorship is beginning to descend. Oh sure, the softcore kind has been around for decades, gradually ratcheting down. We have gotten used to it. But now the hard core stuff is beginning.
Will I stop trying? Of course not. Hopelessness is no reason to give up trying to do the right thing. Even in Nazi Germany, my grandparents helped people escape Hitler. All my mom – a child at the time – knew about it was that people came and left in the middle of the night. My grandparents were saints, heroic saints. Even so they kept their mouths shut, and when family members were called up to war, they went. There was little my mom’s folks could do but they did what they could. Even so they took unspeakable risks. Risks too horrific to contemplate. We are not there yet in America. The Authoritarian State has a ways to go yet. But we are moving in that direction fast. Things will go a lot faster during the next war — which may explain why our misleaders seem hell bent on war. I mean a much bigger war than the ones we’ve already been having….
America is a lost cause, but there is still hope. That hope can be raised up by the rest of the world. The rest of humanity needs to hold the mirror to us, to America – just as this article does. If they do that, there is a slight but real chance that people in America will finally wake up to the truth, the unspeakable truth. The last election, in which rebel candidates almost took over both parties showed that something is building up just under the surface in America. People still mostly cling to the “America is the good country” complacency – but barely.
Putin could take a big step if he traveled to North Korea and personally parley’d with Kim. This would send a shock wave around the world and it just might get folks in America asking the simple and basic question: is it really wrong to negotiate rather than send nukes? Comparisons to Nazi Germany, in that regard, don’t hold any water. Nazi Germany was the most powerful military in the world, for starters. North Korea isn’t even the most powerful military on its peninsula.
America must face the existential question: are we a nation of peace and justice or are we a nation of war and conquest. At this point, the rest of the world has to demand that we face this question. If that happens, maybe alternative voices at home will finally be heard and maybe then discussions that have been needed for decades if not centuries will finally happen.
That moral standing we thought we had? We never, ever had it. But we could have it now.
For starters, Saker manages to avoid being nasty to those who disagree with him. That alone makes it a sparkling piece of writing from Mr. Nasty. Also, it’s not a blatant piece of shill work for Putin. That too makes it an exceptional excretion from the Shiller. This wondrous piece of writing even – almost – manages to avoid exhibiting the nauseating stench of Saker’s apparent homophobia. Of course, more than a whiff does sneak out, but kudos for trying, Saker. The streak of homophobia in your writing is totally unnecessary and also very mean.
Bwahahahahahaha!!!!!
I am amazed, and amused, that the mods allowed this passive-aggressive nonsense to be posted here. But, okay, it is here now. Let is stay. So, first, I apologize for not putting something homophobic in the text, but please understand my problem: I neither hate nor fear homosexuals. I only *pity* them. Sincerely. So no ‘phobia’ from me. Sorry. Oh, now that you mention it, I still do consider homosexuality as sexual personality disorder and I don’t consider that pathology to be “a healthy and normal variation of human sexuality”. But unlike homos, I can actually think of other topics to discuss. Believe it or not, I don’t consider homosexuality the most important topic in the universe :-)
I guess that makes me less anal than others :-))
Also, I still am 100% the Putin fanboy and groupie you *correctly* believe I am. Today more than ever ;-P
As for “trying”, I don’t. I succeed. Hence the 2-2,5 million page serves of this blog. I don’t ‘try’, I am just simply honest. And people see that. Even better, they will see straight through you and your single-topic agenda.
So, really, I am grateful. You made my case for homo-dysfunction better than I ever could :-)
Cheers and thanks,
The Saker
It was a puzzle was it not?
Was he praising with faint damnation, or damning with faint praise?
Or just virtue – signalling?
What a great reply! Saker, you are simply worth of gold. I totally agree with you. So tired of this paranoia about “homophobia”. Accusations about homophobia are todays McCarthyism. And yes, I´m also homophobic, totally and never going to change my mind. And the article is great, among your best ones. God bless you and your family my dear friend.
The problem for the rest of the world , at this point in time , is that America is a nation divided.
We will not be demanding anything until that division is resolved, one way or the other.
Even then, the rest of the world may just breathe a sigh of relief as America destroys itself instead of other countries.
Personally I am feeling better about the world lately. Here are some reasons:
1. Putin. Already discussed at length here. Masterful strategist. Has delayed/stopped war many times. Has won in Syria with minimal resources. He has been discussed thoroughly.
2. The sheer size of the Russian/Chinese/Iranian alliance. This has also been discussed in depth here. Unless a nuclear war occurs, The Empire has no chance to defeat this alliance. No chance at all. They can saber rattle, but Russian/Chinese/Iranian leadership won’t be perturbed by this.
3. The shift away from Russia bashing to America’s domestic Nazi’s. As dysfunctional as that is, Americans turning on each other must be sweet music for the rest of the world. If Americans kill or fight each other, the rest of the world is relatively safe. As tragic as that can be, the United States regime has brought it on itself in so many ways. My sympathy is limited.
4. Trump is doing ok. Many would disagree, but Triump has not started any major wars and he is alive. Bernie Sanders may bring health care to all Americans. This may calm the US. It won’t stop its decline, but it may prevent the car from driving right off the cliff. It might get hung up on a tree branch and teeter for awhile first.
So again, without surprises, I see the same pattern for some time. America remains hysterical but immobile. This could easily go on for three years. Could go on for ten.
My concern is more about China’s relationship with the international bankers and the fifth column inside Russia. I think we need to see Russia nationalize its central bank. I don’t know how realistic that is, but even if Putin is steady as she goes the present track continues.
For the record I am Canadian, so we are most likely screwed when America really collapses, but I don’t see it happening right away.
Also, Let’s all share a sigh of relief for the safety of The Saker and his family.
The lesson of Nazi Germany was not that the Germans were such awful, evil, gullible people. They were some of the best in a lot of fields. Albert Einstein referred to Germany as “a nation of philosophers” and he was correct. Very well educated and cultured.
The real lesson was if fascist & nazi philosophy can con a “nation of philosophers” and lead them to destruction who is so arrogant to say “it can’t happen here”? History will repeat for those who don’t learn from it.
It can and is happening in the USA and Israel as they descend into fascism. I hope they can both see that and change course because it has never ended well for those who get conned and are left holding the bag. But of course those being conned always say the 4 most expensive words known “This Time It’s Different”.
They feel that somehow they are better, superior, indispensable, smarter or “the chosen people” for all others to serve. They have already bought into the “Master Race” nonsense so the way back will be difficult for them but they must turn back because this always ends poorly for the “Master Race”.
TRM:
Thanks to a mix of rightwing propaganda, refugees (produced by the West’s wars and disadvantageous trade deals with weaker nations) and cuts in social spending racism is on the rise again in Western Europe. In Eastern Europe the problem is similar. After the demise of the USSR their economies (production) got crushed by those of the West. Also Eastern Europeans never really got used to to live side by side with so many people from different cultural and religious backgrounds, so xenophobia seems to be quite high. The major difference of modern rightwingers is that their scapegoats are Muslims instead of Jews. Otherwise the game is still played the way history has shown us over and over again.
If these people you have in mind believe might is right, what makes you think they’re good people. I’d rather read a long piece where you attempt to justify this position.
Since when are peace and prosperity Orthodox. Which master do you serve.
As of right now there are 77 comments. I don’t know if anyone will have read this far, to see mine. Regardless, it doesn’t make any difference as to the real world. But I’m now posting anyway.
1. To the counter-culture person: I disagree. Those Americans who wrapped themselves in anti-war rhetoric during Vietnam were using that as a lofty rationalization of their own fear of being sent there (or having boyfriends, sons, husbands, etc., sent there). Once the draft was replaced by the draft lottery, and then the all-volunteer army, the anti-war movement pretty much collapsed. Now members of the middle class (what’s left of it) are content to have members of the lower orders get shipped to war and killed—which is why America still shrugs its shoulders after 16 years and counting in Afghanistan.
2. The Cold War started well before the end of WWII. That’s why the USSR was excluded from the Bretton Woods conference that set up what was to be the global post-war financial regime.
3. Hatred of the Soviet Union was preceded by hatred of communism, when US industrialists largely demolished the US labor movement in the late 1800s by calling it “socialist” and even “communist.” When Russia became the USSR, it was easy to make the appropriate changes to the propaganda. (I wish your letter, Saker, had mentioned that the USA and UK had invaded the new USSR in 1918—something Americans are utterly unaware of.) The hatred of the USSR has outlived the hatred that came from the hatred of it as the bastion of communism.
4. Related: The American Empire is based on the dollar as the world’s reserve currency, which in turn is backed up by the USA’s virtual control of the world’s oil suppliers…all of which is back up by guns. When the dollar goes down, America goes down. We will no longer be able to pretend that money grows on trees. Hence, the increasingly desperate measures the USA takes as China positions itself to displace the dollar. China and Russia are the last holdouts against the financial Imperium.
5. Last month, Paul Craig Roberts promoted a book and documentary by Thomas Goodrich, Hellstorm. It’s the story of what the USA and UK and USSR did to Germany in the final years of WWII and the early years after. It is a sickening story of what can only be called evil. (The documentary is on YouTube, if anyone’s interested.) You can say “The Germans had it coming to them.” But if you’re willing to watch the video (and are able to sit through all of it without vomiting), surely you’ll agree that what the allies did—especially the Americans and Brits—approached the Holocaust itself in utter depravity. Moral: America’s hypocrisy and duplicity is on a vaster scale even than that decried by those who note the genocide against American Indians.
6. Final comment: All the talk about revealing the truth and trying to right wrongs strikes me as naive. It’s a product of the modern Western view of the history of the human race: linear progress (with occasional setbacks). It’s also a product of the belief that “Know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” We’re kidding ourselves, gang. The story of “humanity” is actually the story of depravity. Rather than occasional setbacks, we have only occasional progress, relatively minor at that. What’s happening in the world now (and likely about to happen) is in keeping with the way things have always been. It’s just that now perhaps we really are about to reap the ultimate crop of what we’ve been sowing: extinction on a global scale. Even if WWIII does not happen, chances are good we’re in for a Neo-Medievalism that surpasses the nightmares of Orwell and Huxley.
But thank you, Saker, for trying. Despite my pessimism—which the truth only exacerbates—I prefer truth to falsehoods.
With all the additional historical knowledge that I gained in the past three years I tend to believe that Germany had been prepped up by US industrialists and bankers in order to get rid of Communism. (The usage of the word “socialism” in National Socialism had been for the sole purpose of fooling people. Why else would a Socialist country argue with costs for eliminating people considered inferior? For further information check Nazi eugenics and Aktion T4.)
@ David Ronin
No fear, your comment will be read and appreciated by many – it is an indictment of the capitalist dog-eat-dog ideology, of conquering and submission to naked evil power, of the individualistic view on the nature of man. But it is also a warning that the current civilization is degenerating into a high tech Dark Age as the Police Deep State harness too itself all the levers of power over body and mind while the proles fight among themselves over trifles, trinkets and tripe.
Here’s a link to the video Hellstorm:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkQ6J5F01Do
Probably you should download it. The Internet is being “cleansed” by the Elites, freaks of Silicon Valley-Hegemon.
went there and in NZ it is blocked already (
and in Australia, on copyright grounds apparently
see here:
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2017/08/14/hellstorm-the-documentary/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ck-TEamhLBk
Saker,
You have been very kind to me over these past few months trying to address the issue of what we can do as individuals. You said you did not believe in “collective guilt”. I disagreed with you. You may believe Americans are good people, but that does not absolve us from responsibility.
Your essay attempts to give us a history lesson when we are witnessing war crimes and crimes against humanity in real time on YouTube while global mass media insists “it is not what it looks like.” It goes further by criminalizing those who suggest otherwise.
A few days ago, an anti-war banner in Boston was reported to be “deeply insensitive”,”profoundly disrespectful” and an “upsetting politicization” of a day of remembrance. The same type of thing is being reported in Santa Fe with American Indians.
This is my ongoing debate with you and Catherine Austin Fitts.
As Greer said, “Collapse Now to Avoid the Rush”
You have to imagine what the world COULD have been like over the past 70 years. No bloodbaths, no Cold War, no arms race. Genuine disarmament and cooperation. Fair trade policies rather than exploitation and so called aid, bringing real hope and a measure of prosperity to all humanity. Peace and stability the norm. Genuine respect for the sovereignty of other nations. Paying something more than lip service to international law. The world could have been something approaching an earthly paradise with everyone benefitting. That future was within our grasp but it was rejected. Maybe now it’s too late. Maybe it will take a Third World War (if anyone survives) to look at what the Saker has written and draw the right conclusions from it.
What at times, appear to us as a disaster, in reality, turn out to be a blessing. I believe you were pushed to Virginia to write this beautiful piece Saker. I hope (but doubt) that your insight will arouse a sense of responsibility in the American people; in my opinion, they will go down with the destruction of the Roman church by Babylon who, in turn, will go down too when the `beast` turns on the ‘harlot’ who has been riding it till now.
Thanks to the prophet Daniel for telling us , over 2000 years ago, how it would end.
As awful and daunting as the situation in the world and in the spagetti brains of my fellow Americans is, I am almost amused by the pessimism and near resignation of many commenters in this thread in particular.
“You can’t change people, you can only change yourself, etc, etc.”
Yes, it is still very much an uphill battle. But compared to WHAT???
I was involved from 1980 fairly intensively in the effort to change the world for about 20 years.
The attitide of family and friends (politely expressed but evident enough) was: “You’re dreaming! You can’t do anything. And don’t you dare insinuate that I should try to do anything, either.”
Then circa 2000 body more broken than spirit I fell back on the far easier task of marriage and children. while still following world events, not that much, but more closely than most, and here’s the important part: studiously shunning MSM which had earned my very conscious disgust and hatred a couple of decades earlier.
What garbage you refuse to absorb can be more important than valid knowledge that you do absorb!
Then, when I had the luxury of looking up from the entrepreneurial grindstone and relaxing a little bit, with considerably more time for poking around on the internet than 2000-2012……I was pleasantly shocked. My reaction was, honest to God, We’re winning!!
Now, mind you, I realized the government (Obama into second term….) absolutely stunk, 2008 was being totally papered over and set up for an even more devastating planetary meltdown, etc,etc, But the numbers of diffrent voices of opposition to the mind control was actually thrilling to me!
And that was before coming across this site, around the time Vickie was passing out cookies in Kiev.
True, there is still a long way to go. But it doesn’t feel nearly as uphill as it did in the 80s and 90s.
Sure, more people are stupider and more cowardly than ever. So what!!??
They don’t count 1/10,000 as much as the few (but ORDERS of magnitude more than in the 80s and 90s!!!) that are awakened to various degrees, and speaking either excellently, or not great, but OK now, as opposed to back then.
The objective reality is still very tough, very challenging. That’s a given.
But even though the hour is late and all the urgency and motivation you can muster is more than called for, I have to say that subjectively because of people who are seriously commenting or just reading and thinking……compared to THEN…..the smell of victory over Empire and the rule of falsehood and evil is more in the air NOW.
So even if you are here for the first time, and just “can’t see it” yet I would urge you not to wring your hands or sell yourself or any other human being short, now matter how impossible it may seem to penetrate their skulls right this moment. You are probably much more important right now, than you yet realize……especially if you keep going and don’t weaken, and in time may influence more of a change in yourself and others than you can imagine, right here, right now.
Ta for the inspiration bro
Bro 93,
you referred to my comment, so I reply:
I am not pessimistic at all! All I am claiming is
that CONSEQUENCES are brining people to the truth
not some long worded letter from the Saker.
Yes I agree with you, more and more people
are waking up as time goes by. But that’s to expect,
because many are hurting financially (CONSEQUENCE),
or know someone who died or got maimed in the Empire’s wars
(again a CONSEQUENCE).
My recommendation to Saker was to use his time for
more productive endeavors instead trying to turn people
who aren’t ready yet to face the truth.
I am for letting things take their toll. It CANNOT be any other way.
All the suffering (for the past 500+ years) done in the name
of the West (with or without consent – Westerners didn’t
do anything to stop it so it doesn’t matter), will HAVE to come home.
Btw, if you notice, this is what Putin/Russia/China/Iran are doing,
they are engaging in productive endeavors leaving the West to
their own problems.
Please don’t use all capitals – its like shouting and against moderation policy. If you wish to emphasize words then there are several options available to commenters when making comments – please take note of these by clicking on the [+] for additional formatting options. Mod
Impassioned piece of writing. Very much in sync with my very own thoughts.
Anyway, … your writing triggered a recall of the olden essay that I once read – c. 2012, entitled, “The Infinite Human Capacity to Deny the Obvious.
Snip:
… The willingness to believe voices of “authority,” the enthusiasm for believing the “softer” part of the public fiction and disregarding those elements that might profoundly disturb us, affects nearly everyone; it certainly affected me very strongly in various ways long after I had become an adult. But at this late date, it surely should not be controversial to acknowledge that political leaders lie, and that they lie all the time. But the full implications of that fact still escape many people. …
… and the whole enchilada:
http://powerofnarrative.blogspot.ca/2012/11/the-infinite-human-capacity-to-deny.html
Best,
F.S.
The article should be read by everybody reading MSM and watching US ,EU media.
Perfeito!
Thank you, Saker, for this lesson of truth. I have read it all and will read it again. I have been following this site for about 3 years, but never commented before, as English is not my first language. What I find totally shocking in the world of both politics and science these days is the suppression of truth and facts. Everywhere we are met with massive lies, in “climate science”, ancient history and current politics. To me, this essay is important because it speaks the truth and it means truth still exists somewhere, if not here where I am.
Velkommen som kommentator her, (Er du Norsk?)
“To me, this essay is important because it speaks the truth and it means truth still exists somewhere, if not here where I am.”
Truth is in the heart (and mind sometimes), and actually there are quite a few individuals and groups in Norway reading this blog as well as many other web-sites discussing/spotlighting Geo-Political as well as spiritual/moral/ethical issues in these very crucial times.
Take Care
Kent
If nuclear war happens, and I survive the initial exchange, I will hunt down the nearest elite bunker and bury it under 50 feet of concrete.
I suggest we make this a global promise.
But they’ll have their Praetorian Guard (also known as the army, police and state troopers) for protection. You better organize now the NRA as the Avengers for the coming Armageddon.
The time for preemptive strikes is now.
“Because your notion of “success” is the spiritual, psychological and cultural death of an ancient civilization and that makes you, quite literally, an mortal enemy of mankind as a whole.”
This is the central point of this masterpiece rant. Truly, globalization is guilty of murder of traditional cultures of the humaninty. And what is striking is that fewer and fewer people realize, how catastrophic this loss is.
Metropolae of the globalized world are full of well fed but mindless and controllable gray masses of consumers without *any* cultural and spiritual identity. The fact is that the right to create culture and civilization (in the traditional sense) is integral part of respect for human dignity.
“Speak the Truth, and you shame the Devil. Know the Truth, and the Truth shall set you free.”
Anecdotal evidence: In 2003, during the Bush/BLiar rape of Iraq, chatting with a Yank online, I learned that GrandPa Bush had financed the Nazis “and the fruit does not fall far from the tree”. He said he despaired of his country. I tried to comforted him by pointing out that the USA was still a Democracy, and still had free speech (as witness our chat); so “when every member of your dumbo democracy has had a chance to chew the matter 10 times over with everyone else, the truth will come out in about 20 years time. See now! only 14 years later, most people will agree that the rape of Iraq was “a mistake” (polite version); and an increasingly large number will say in public “911? Inside job”.
Another piece of anecdotal evidence in favour of Saker’s thesis: I owe this very website for my own, rather belated conversion to 911 Truther.
Excellent article including the many interesting comments. My concern is that we have today many idiots as so called leaders like Kim Jong-un in North Korea who has nukes & missiles yo send them around the world. Then we have USA that apparently wants to hold on to its Empire with 900+ foreign military bases and with an aggressive military agenda supported by simple minded followers in Europe like the European commission not realzing they’re playing with fire soon resulting in an nuclear explosion initiated by Washington & EU clowns!
In the past we had strong leaders who mis-used their power like Mao, Stalin & Hitler and today we have only have President Putin of Russia & Xi Jinping of China, both have nukes and a strong military force well able to balance the Washington power elite, like the US military-industrial complex for which President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned. However, it seems that the Washington warmongers are controlling US foreign policies based on military aggression as we see today in the Middle East where Washington is destabilizing the region by supporting anti- Assad opposition with money, weapons & even training. Obviously, Washington ignores the lessons from the past like in Iraq (murdering Saddan Hussein and Libya murdering president Gaddafi, two strong leaders in the region who were able to stabilize the Middle East & North Africa.
Conclusion: US economy is for a great deal dependent on their defense industry & wars evidenced by the fact that the USA has been at wars worldwide for 220 years since its foundation in 1779. Wars for the USA is a money making business and the suffering & murdering of innocent people are just ‘collateral damage’ and unless we can stop the evil American empire this suffering will continue & result in WW III
Hello Saker. Re your reference to Stalingrad. I think the Battle of Stalingrad took place between 1942-1943. The USA was already in the war by then. Perhaps you are thinking about Operation Barbarossa which kicked off in June 1941 about a half year before Pearl Harbor?
Thank you Saker for a brilliant yet scathing article. A long captive read.
I do have one question. Are they still your friends? Please please please let us know their reactions to your letter. Best wishes from Russia. (but not Russian)
Are they still your friends? Please please please let us know their reactions to your letter
Interesting question :-)
I have yet to send them my letter. I will do that on Monday.
But since you asked, I will try to remember to come back here and let you know.
Cheers,
The Saker
Why send them the ‘Letter’ — send them this link and they can also appreciate the many comments as well.
because they don’t know about my blogging :-)
cheers,
The Saker
okay, I got their reply.
One declared himself himself apolitical
The second one told me that to reply would require some “serious research”.
In other words, they refuse to engage.
You know, they are both very kind and good people. I love them very much.
But I don’t think that decades of indoctrination can be reversed by fact-based arguments or logic.
This saddens me, but there is nothing else I can do to wake them up.
Kind regards,
The Saker
To any Americans who want to know more about WW2 on the Russian Front, Bert Lancaster once narrated a rather good TV show on the topic. Its called “The Unknown War”, and I’d recommend any American who knows WW2 from a chapter in a school history book and then what Hollywood puts out should watch this.
I’m pretty sure I remembered seeing this once on American TV back when I was much younger. But these days, American TV would never show this nor tell these stories. So, if you are an American and you want to learn a bit about the massive struggle that took place between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany, here’s a link…….
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfLzvgzsb9TifHZ7atjvqaLinfp1lfs3R
Yep, nailed it again. Love your articles. Relentless in your presentation of truth. I hope that everyone else starts doing the same thing, or at least accepting the truth for themselves.
Reality check: The American People are not as stupid as many people here seem to think. My worry is that the evil idiots running the parallel corporate-techno-military state will provoke a species destroying war before we can stop them.
The people who are clueless are those like my professor brother who used to have a half way decent class analysis but somewhere got lost in the pages of The New Yorker ( run by a CIA asset editor) and the Atlantic ( neocons in drag) There is no talking to him.
My blue collar AA friend who spent time in prison says the prisons are run on divide and rule where the guards encourage the division of inmates into race based gangs. Any attempt to meet in neutral territory like the library or the chapel in order to have a Bible study group which recruits members across race lines has to be OKed by the leaders of the prison as well as each gang leader.
“Oh yeah, they are trying to get us to fight each other–that’s how they stay in power.” And this week after an announcement in the media last week that the movie industry had the worst summer ever, there was a headline saying that “people are flocking to see ‘It'” . By the way, ‘It’ is a snuff film in which a clown like demon does a horrible child mutilation among other depraved activities.
“Yes, they lie to us about everything.” As I was buying gas the other day, I picked up a newspaper to look at the headlines, and the clerk said, “Don’t read that–it will ruin your day.” Precisely.
There is a homeless emergency in Southern California yet the State of California run by Jesuit Gran Inquisitor type Jerry Brown has allotted millions to sanctuary cities. They are not just buying votes, they are buying voters. He has never spoken out specifically about the riots against free speech at Berkeley , by the way, or in defense of the 1st Amendment.
My worry is the lack of competent leadership….If Alex Jones is the best of what we have, it just will not make the grade. Everyone I speak to is talking about how people are helping each other in the disasters of Harvey and Irma .
A new zeitgeist is being born, the rulers are running scared and they want to smother it in its cradle now that their old story has been put to bed.
Bravo Saker! Yet another powerful statement against Empire. I think your readers might appreciate in some forthcoming analysis a detailed description of the current Empire as it exists in present form. Specifically your analysis on the senior role the City of London global financial octopus, British Intel services, the current royal families, their associates and how the British Empire and British elites interface with Wall Street and the Anglo American elite. Is there not a reason why Anglo is in front of American when we refer to empire as the “Anglo American Empire”. Even your description of the “Anglo Zionist Empire” implies Israel as an extension of the British Empire. In financial circles it is understood that the City of London is senior to Wall Street and that America has been the big dumb giant following Lord Milner’s geopolitical strategy of the Great Game against Russia/China, at least since the creation of the Federal Reserve, at its own peril. It is incorrect to see this oligarchic structure as “American”. After all, as Americans, ridding ourselves of Empire would happily return America to its original mission as a constitutional republic, whose reason for exists is to end all empires, as they are absolutely mutually exclusive forms of organization. (read Henry Carey, John Calhoun or any number of Lincoln brain trusts). I think that many of your readers and otherwise honorable patriots in the political body, military and certainly the general public are confused or even ignorant on the British question and the unique role of the City of London as being the heart of the beast, so to speak.
Well a nuclear winter may be a refreshing change from this global warming we are witnessing inlast 20 years.
Here in Serbia summer was to hot.
Your American friends need to be grounded on the basics of human economies. Regardless of the circumstances, these GENERALLY hold true :
1) I don’t do anything without returns or benefits.
2) Living and maintaining my house, car, family and cat requires a lot of money.
Now, just scale up those simple points and apply them to countries.
Let’s apply it to the United States of America.
Fact, the entire US defence budget exceeds that of several nations, including both Russia and China combined (!) … and that’s not inclusive of black projects funding. Paying for them costs vast sums of money.
To cover for these sums, the US cannot infinitely print dollars from thin air without suffering massive currency devaluation (basic economy 101). Thus you need willing idiots or half-wit accomplices who would absorb these excess dollars to prevent devaluation. That’s where OPEC petrodollar comes in, plus any countries who maintain reserves or trade using the dollar (pretty much most countries).
To put it simply, the whole US machinery is being propped up and financed by almost the entire world. It’s a humongous parasite. Let’s pause and let that notion sink for a while ….
Now, anyone (especially ignoramuses and ostriches) can BS all they want, all day, all year with regard to the US as a white knight defender of justice, protector of democracies and enforcer of peace. The cold, hard reality on the ground paints a different picture.
A parasite will do what it needs to remain alive.
Does anyone really need a reminding on the phisiology of a parasite?
Sturm, you are on to something here, but you really do need to read “The Controversy of Zion” by Douglas Reed to understand the true nature of the parasitical infestation.
What will be really interesting is what happens to the parasite when its imperial host shudders and breathes it’s last. Several thousand years of history suggest it is already preparing the next host for it’s arrival. Hopefully some immunity has been acquired.
http://www.controversyofzion.info/
Saker,
A truly brilliant rant, one of the best I have ever read.
On the comments, John Micheal Greer at “the archdruid report” had a policy that seemed to work. He just deleted the nonsense ones usually with a warning, and the trolls he would dis without giving them the right of reply if they were persistent. They did not hang around long after that. His comments pages were often hundreds long and well worth the effort becasue he replied to almost every comment. Not suggesting you need to do that though.
Cheers from the long winter in Tasmania, good to hear you are well and safe.
@eagle eye:
Context and scope for my prev comment can be applied universally. Whether its the US, China or even Russia, they will all (eventually) devolve into the same locus (over time), once the proper criterion have been fulfilled.
If you’re familiar with Asimov’s Foundation series books, its a rough prediction of human behaviour on the macroscale. Even now, I’m sure there are various studies out there on constructing math/probability models for the various geo conflict. Asimov wasn’t that far off target with his concepts.
Not read the book recommended, but I’m fairly aware on that topic with bits here and there. That’s a whole another level by itself. The average Americans already have issues understanding the basics (cocooned in their own world), even Putin had trouble ;)
Sturm,
Read the book, it ties a whole lot of stuff together in a way that makes it easy to understand the progression from a lying group of priests in the old testament all the way through to Nutty yahoo and modern politics.
Please resend your link it isn’t working. Mod
This puts the current situation in perspective. Indeed one can see the same machinations being played out.
http://bit.ly/2f6xPNS
This one works in my browser
It’s been said Americans are the most brainwashed people on Earth.
For all the decades after WW2, two full generations of people, Americans have been brainwashed to believe, with 100% conviction, that their country is not only the greatest, it is the greatest any country is history can ever be.
That the U.S. is always right, always powerful, always leader and police of the world. The perfect empire. This is God’s will. This is just like how the Roman felt at their empire height, the Spanish felt during their holy empire, the British felt during the long centuries of global dominance. There is something about European’s cultural DNA of white supremacy. There is something sick and broken about a people, merely 5% believe they rule over the other 95%. With military force and impunity.
Under this situation it is useless to talk sense or facts. It is impossible to change anything. Well, change can happen but only to a future generation after they have been reduced to poverty, society reduced to chaos. The last time this happened was during the 1930’s Great Depression. So yes, author can write this piece again after the Second Great American Depression. When the population’s minds are much less brainwashed and willing to consider facts of reality in front of their eyes.
Americans kill each other with their guns. Oh yes, don’t try to change American gun worship.
If I may, the White Russians you speak of exhibit a condition that many immigrants do – that is, being more American (modernist) than Americans. The West is in some ways the new Rome. Economics are relatively good – immigrants have a decent chance at a good living, there is a visible civility – people are polite, drive in a civilized way, the police are alright and justice seems fair, there is little corruption as far as the average person is concerned, there’s something of a representative government, etc. This is why everyone flocked to Rome during the Apostle Paul’s time even though Rome was their conquerer, and why people flock to the West today! Let’s not forget, by the way, that Roman justice was much fairer to Paul than Jewish!
Immigrants are fooled by the West’s apparent morality and civilization. They then easily acquire an inferiority complex. They, especially the White Russians, who are supposed to be Orthodox, forget that civility is often but a heightened selfishness. I drive properly not because I love my fellow driver but because I have learnt perhaps through generations that if I do so and everyone does so I will have a good chance of quickly and safely getting where I want.
Christianity is not about morality or civics – it’s about sacrificial love like Christ. Otherwise it’s just the Mosaic law. A corollary is that civilizations like the West are not to be blindly admired but perhaps to be pitied – they need the good news far more than ‘corrupt’ Russia, which is far more aware of its problems.
This is by far one of the best essays I’ve read in a long,long time. Congratulations!
Concise,powerful,with irrefutable facts,inconvenient truths,well documented. It triggers emotions and critical thinking. It is a definite threat to the propaganda of the Empire and the cognitive dissonance of its inhabitants.
It entirely reflects my thoughts and ideas .
Well done!
Bravo! What an outstanding piece of writing, Saker. Thank you.
Andrei my Orthodox brother what is it exactly that you are suggesting that Americans who are opposed to the Empire do? I am such an American but short of leaving the country my options are quite limited. Also just out of curiosity what keeps you living in the United States (in the heart of the Empire)?
Outstanding piece, Saker, along with the commentary herein.
Regarding the prospects of hope, I was reading that China is enforcing sanctions on exports from North Korea. China is even confiscating small-scale seafood farming, in addition to a blockade on oil, textiles, coal, and iron. Residents along the border in China are reporting significant declines in local exports from North Korea, and that trade has declined substantially since the adoption of new sanctions under Russian and Chinese approval. Yet the U.S. continues to threaten North Korea and refuses negotiation, while the North Korean economy is subject to a cordon that impacts ninety percent (!) of its exports. This places the North Korean economy at a significant disadvantage, while doing nothing to reduce the U.S. posture, and indeed drives a wedge between the North Koreans and the Russians and Chinese. Are there any signs that Russia and China made the right decision here?
If the USA and Russia are switching places, with the USA becoming more like the old Soviet Union and Russia becoming more democratic, then why aren’t the best and brightest people moving from Europe and the USA to Russia. When will we start seeing ads for American mail order brides instead of Russian ones?
“When will we start seeing ads for American mail order brides instead of Russian ones?” There are no nice looking american women, thats the reason!. The rest you can figure out by yourself.
Well, I recall going to school in USA alongside some very pretty girls…Slavic girls though, with Slavic names. And there was a gorgeous algebra teacher…also Slavic.
That was long time ago…
Is true, the girls are almost all rather unattractive now…diet and gmo and Madison avenue and cheap low quality stuffings… But it depends…the ones that exercise (work!) and eat proper foods are still quite attractive…but far too few.
Seriously, Ivan has made it plain that he wishes to reverse the Slavic diaspora and also attract decent moral men and women who bring quality and skill to the party…even free land. The deal is not to get brides, but quality loyal people, so far as I can see.
Smart young people out to be banging on the doors to get into Ru…perhaps in a minor way this accounts for T Man closing the deplo-offices…
This shows how easily people become enthralled to evil leaders through propaganda, and have done so throughout history. Those who don’t fall for the propaganda are nonetheless silenced by it. As “civilisation” progresses, and people spend most of their day looking at screens, they are succumbing to this propaganda stream all the more. Eager to get an email saying “Your country needs you!” so they can go off and do their duty killing the enemy like a good patriot should.
“He is fat, inexperienced, erratic, unpredictable and is nuclear-armed, and he has a funny haircut.” No, not Kim Jong-Un – Donald J. Trump.
As we enter the Age of Peak Fossils, the idea of building more stuff to fix the problem of not having enough energy is counter-productive and cannot be achieved, regardless of Global Warming, and much more urgent. But nobody dares challenge the concept of more, more, more, let alone win an election on a less, less, less ticket.
The Human Race is not capable of working its way out of this situation. History proves it. A major collapse is coming.
Saker, this is far the best thinking I have ever read anywhere so far. may I add my very few coins to it?
I do not fully understand a Russian sole, however, I thought of such an explanation, why the Russians always pull the shorter end. A simple one… Mine… I believe, that the capitalism gives people something they always dreamt of. An easier life, full stomachs and somehow security. None of this was ever given to the Russian people and of course to all the rest of the world outside of lrt say is represented by blaah G7. As a consequence of failing to secure the human greed, they always had to fight the fifth column either their own, or implanted. The communists called this an internal enemy… As a result, my view is generally more tolerant to Stalin and communists as such. I am namely trying to understand their thinking based on the current events in the world.
BTW, I also believe that people can get lied and believed to the mainstream propaganda, because they fail to make an effort to study and understand. And with such, there should not be a false mercy. However, I fully agree wit what you said and would be curious to see the response from these people and also in the comments below.
All the best. lmimkac.
Saker:
I knew from your profile that you are a Russian emigre; but I presumed that you had become a naturalized citizen of the United States. I thought that you are American ( a Russian-American at that). No matter! A resident alien in the United States possesses all the privileges and opportunities available to citizens, except for the right to vote and to hold certain high public and sensitive offices.
I am disappointed at the tone of anger which you directed at ordinary people -in this case Americans- for the way the global masters are using the wealth acquired from this country to continue their quest for ever more wealth and power. You start your essay by acknowledging that ordinary people -be they Germans, Russians, Americans, etc.- couldn’t have done anything to change the political decisions of their leaders which have taken us to where we are.
We are all helpless, when we stand up against the power of the elites of the Anglo-Zionist empire. Even Putin and Xi Jing-pin must tread carefully as they try to forge a newer world order beyond the reach of these Anglo-Zionists. Why do you think that Americans can be any more successful at throwing out the Zionists than the Russians were capable of throwing out the Bolsheviks, or the Germans the Nazis? Economic hardships have not turned the Iranians against the Imams, the Russians against Putin, or the Koreans against Kim.
The American people are not capable -regardless of how many among them who will stand against the regime- of overturning the establishment. You Russians will have to do it for yourselves and for the rest of mankind.
I suspect that Russia and China are together trying to develop an economic and military entity which would be capable of not only destroying the might of America in all-out warfare, but also to deny the American establishment access to specific sources of wealth and power in certain parts of the world. It seems that the United States is aware of this strategy. Global positioning of military forces and escalating levels of economic sanctions make sense when they are evaluated from this perspective.
Like the Chinese game of Go, it will eventually become evident which side will “win” well before the last move is made. That is when the real crisis will climax: either the losing side asks for terms of assimilation, or it will seek to win a “pre-emptive” war.
It looks like this struggle will not be resolved diplomatically before it will be determined militarily. The Chinese will be “back-benchers”, if it comes to war. Your country will be the primary target, or the one who attacks first.
back in 2001, as I recall, there were letters about how now, with the Bush43coup, the ordinary people in the us were in a dilemma that was quite similar to the dilemma the ordinary Germans faced in 1938. That was in California, but I do not recall what newspaper…letters to editor.
Another fabulous article, Mr. Saker. I’m with you – I’ve had enough! I’m trying to enlighten others as well, but the MSM propaganda has done its job and the average citizen will not listen. It is hard to get others to even entertain researching alternative media. Many of my friends think CNN and BBC are to be relied on – “the most trusted name in news”. Sorry, just had to vomit.
A poll just came out in the US that 58% of Americans think that the US should attack North Korea. I think that number is correct. If so, that is pathetic. Do these 58% think that only North Koreans would be killed in such an attack? I don’t think the US has any right intervening anywhere else in the world. But the characters really in charge of the US think otherwise, and to hell with international law.
One word…. Brilliant !!!!
BRAVO! Well stated and thorough. I couldn’t have done a better letter, myself. This Letter takes my breath away. Thank you for your clarity and summation of so much pain caused to others by the actions of the US Empire. I’ve done my best to alert the people of the US to the pain their complacence is causing. You have taken that alert to another level. I hope this Letter is read far and wide.
Another great piece by the Saker, summed up the concept of empire pretty well. Unfortunately this topic requires alot of background knowledge, especially in history. Too many people reach flawed conclusions due to their lack of knowledge and insight into history, and on top of that, too many have no idea what a modern empire even looks like, as opposed to the classical land-grabbing empires of old.
Read this: ‘The Other Slavery, The Uncovered Story of Indian Enslavement in America”, Andres Resendez
Never give up!
Once I was a Russofob, during the Cold War One, today I am a Rossophile.
Croat.
And I don’t care much B.S. which is written by Saker about the Croats.
He will not change me.
Never has anything you’ve written rung so true to me. I grew up in France, under De Gaulle, during the Marshall Plan, which he had opposed from the get go (and nearly got assassinated by the ilk of the Dulles Brothers 47 times as a result). When one looks in depth into the Marshall plan and its motivations, one realizes very quickly that anything the US has ever done worldwide was, indeed, to plunder, colonialize et propagandize peoples against enemies, real or imaginary but mostly imaginary. Proof is that the US has never been invaded by anyone!
http://www.historyinanhour.com/2012/02/09/the-marshall-plan-and-the-cold-war/